Plane part on farm not ours says Air NZ

By NAOMI LARKIN and BRIDGET CARTER

Another case has emerged of an aircraft part falling from the sky - but the identity of the plane remains a mystery.

Whitford landowner Graeme Mathews said his wife Rosalind found a 30cm by 35cm piece of metal about nine months ago when she was spraying gorse on their 4.4ha property, which is on the flight path about 15km from Auckland Airport.

He understood the part was a small door on an engine that was opened to check oil, and that it belonged to an Air New Zealand 747.

Mr Mathews said he gave the part to his cousin Les Mathews, who was an Air New Zealand pilot. His cousin said the part belonged to the airline and it had been missing.

He said Air New Zealand had investigated and found that the door had not been latched properly by ground crew who checked the oil before takeoff.

But Air New Zealand said last night that the part was "absolutely and categorically not" from one of its planes.

Spokesman Cameron Hill said the airline had checked its fleet and put out an advisory bulletin to other international airlines, but no one had claimed the part.

Civil Aviation Authority spokesman Martyn Gosling did not know about the incident, but said parts falling from aircraft were a concern and the CAA would like to hear of cases.

Meanwhile, an Air New Zealand flight from Christchurch to Australia carrying 200 passengers was delayed yesterday after a fault was discovered in the tail of the 767-200 aircraft.

Airline spokesman Mark Champion said the plane had been cleared to fly and left for Sydney at 4 pm with about 160 passengers after a replacement part was flown from Auckland.

The problem was in the tail elevator, the horizontal part of the tail that controls the plane's attitude.

The pilot discovered the error when the aircraft was taxiing.

Air New Zealand jets have been plagued by a string of mechanical failures recently.

On Sunday, a 767 owned by its subsidiary, Ansett Australia, was forced to turn back when the wing flaps failed to retract after takeoff from Coolangatta airport bound for Victoria. The plane was then grounded.

That incident came a day after a 5kg wing part from Air New Zealand Flight 102 smashed through the roof of a South Auckland warehouse as the 767-300 was approaching the airport. The piece of titanium alloy track, which holds the wing flaps in place once they are extended for landing, narrowly missed shoppers.

A passenger had seen the part dangling under the wing in Sydney on Saturday and alerted the crew, but Qantas engineers, who are contracted to service Air New Zealand aircraft in Sydney, found nothing amiss.

The plane was yesterday cleared to fly.

Tim Burfoot, chief investigator of accidents for the Transport Accident Investigation Commission, said the part would be tested to find out why it fell off.

The Boeing spokesman for Australasia, Ken Morton, said company engineers were working with Air New Zealand and Ansett to find out what went wrong in both incidents.