Woman trapped in crashed plane

The crashed plane landed in a swamp a few hundred metres from Claris Airport. Photo / Westpac Rescue Helicopter Service

Rescue workers had to pull a badly injured woman from the wreckage of a Great Barrier Airlines plane that crashed yesterday.

The 50-year-old was one of four passengers in the Piper Cherokee, which plunged into a swamp at the end of the Claris Airport runaway on Great Barrier Island about 1pm.

The two pilots and other passengers, all New Zealanders, escaped from the wreckage, but the woman was unable to move because of suspected back and pelvic injuries.

She was later flown to Auckland Hospital by the Westpac Rescue Helicopter. One of the pilots - aged in his 30s - was also flown to Auckland Hospital with cuts and bruising to his face.

Great Barrier police officer Kylie Robbins - who is also an ambulance driver, volunteer firefighter and rescue-boat skipper - said she and a doctor and nurse from the Aotea Health medical centre waded through the waist-deep waters of the swamp to reach the trapped and injured passenger.

They climbed into the plane, freed the woman and put her on a stretcher.

She was taken to the island's medical centre in Ms Robbins' four-wheel-drive police car, which doubles as an ambulance.

Helicopter paramedic Barry Watkin said the passengers were all wearing seatbelts.

The damage to the plane could be seen from the air, he said.

"It looked like a wing was buried or broken off. The other wing was sticking up."

The craft seemed "fairly intact".

"They are very lucky to have walked away from that. When I called up the hospital, they said [the patients] seemed only moderately injured.

"So it was a bad day, but they were very fortunate."

Great Barrier Airlines deputy operation manager Mike Maguire said the plane "failed to sustain a climb after take-off due to unknown causes and descended into a swamp".

The crash happened a few hundred metres from the end of Runway 28 on the island.

The crash is Great Barrier Airlines second accident in three months.

On July 5, a three-engine Britten-Norman Trilander with 11 passengers on board had to make an emergency landing after it lost the propeller on its right engine.

The side of the aircraft was cut open by the propeller, but the plane made a safe return to the airport.