Plane hit van before crash

A preliminary report into the crash that killed Auckland property heir Stacey Hopper says his light plane clipped a parked van before hitting the ground.

Civil Aviation Authority investigators said the plane crashed at about 4pm on March 12, as the 27-year-old took off from Marsden Cove, near Whangarei.

Witnesses said as the plane approached a van parked 180m from the end of the airstrip it "pulled up and banked".

The right wingtip struck the van's windscreen and roof pillar and the plane crashed in a paddock and was consumed by fire.