Misima Island. Photo / Supplied
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The wife of a Kiwi killed in a Papua New Guinea plane crash is bringing his body home to Auckland next week.
Alexei Filyaev, 50, was on a chartered Trans Air plane, with five people on board, when it slid off a wet runway on Misima Island, crashed into trees
and burst into flames on August 31.
Filyaev, who owned a house in Pakuranga, was a sales manager for Medivac company International SOS. He had dual citizenship of New Zealand and Russia but carried a New Zealand flag with him wherever he went in the world.
He had been living in Sydney temporarily while a visa was being processed to live and work in Papua New Guinea.
His wife Alina and five-year-old son Alex, who live on Sakhalin, an island off Russia's east coast, will be returning to Auckland with her husband's remains next week.
Sharon Stewart and her husband David were close friends of the Filyaevs.
"He was a really good person," said Sharon Stewart.
David Stewart was best man at the Filyaevs' Manukau wedding in 2005.
"He was in love with his wife," David Stewart said. "He met her on Sakahlin Island. They returned to New Zealand every year for three or four weeks and stayed with us. He is missed."
Filyaev's long term plan was to settle in New Zealand in the house he bought about 18 months ago in Pakuranga.
"He wanted little Alex to have an education in New Zealand and to live in New Zealand," Sharon Stewart said. "It's all so sad. They were just starting to plan for that happening."
The only survivor of the crash was the Kiwi co-pilot, Kelby Cheyne, 25. The other three men who died were Australians.
