two dead in NZ crash

[Te_Kahu]

wo dead in South Island helicopter crash

05.03.06 3.00pm


Two people have died when their helicopter crashed in steep terrain in Mt Aspiring National Park, near Wanaka this morning.

The Robinson 22 crashed near Homestead Peak, west of Lake Wanaka, at an altitude of about 1500 metres before 11am.

John Aspinall of Mt Aspiring Station said staff at Wanaka Aerodrome called him this morning to confirm a fire in the park which had been reported by an aircraft flying in the area.

Mr Aspinall said he drove about five kilometres up the valley from his property and was able to confirm the fire through binoculars.

It was not until the Department of Conservation was notified and flew over the site that they realised the fire was from the wreckage of a helicopter, he said.

Mr Aspinall said the site of the crash was on a ridge, in steep terrain, which then dropped away to a gorge.

"There is only one way they will be able to retrieve the wreckage and bodies and that is with helicopters," he said.

Recovery operations may be hampered by strong wind in the area but flying conditions had been "ideal" at the time of the crash, he said.

"It was almost quite perfect this morning. There had been a light frost in the morning but sunny, clear skies and the wind only started after the crash at midday."

Police said they believed the helicopter was on a private flight .

- NZPA :sad: :sad:

[Te_Kahu]

Bodies Being Recovered From Chopper Crash
4:30 PM, 05 Mar 2006
Printer friendly version Print this story
Search and rescue teams say the area where a helicopter crashed today killing the two men on board is difficult to access.

The Robinson 22 went down at Homestead Peak near Mt Aspiring.

The police say the helicopter had sustained extensive fire damage.

Search and rescue staff are recovering the bodies of the two men but say there is a lot of wreckage and the crash site is steep and difficult to reach.

No names have yet been released.

© NewsRoom 2006

[BigMike]

From helitorque.com:
R22 was from Wanaka Helicopters. Private pilot from Canada on a local flight.

[BigMike]

From stuff.co.nz:

"Aviators defend crashed helicopter
06 March 2006
By DEBBIE JAMIESON, JOANNA DAVIS and DAN EATON

A helicopter crash near Wanaka which killed two men yesterday has thrown a fresh spotlight on the safety of the widely-used Robinson 22 they were flying.


High winds hampered police efforts to recover the bodies of two men killed in the mid-morning crash in Mount Aspiring National Park, on Homestead Peak.

The men have not been formally identified, but the pilot is believed to be a Canadian, aged in his 20s and living in the Wanaka area, and his passenger a visitor from overseas.

They had privately hired the Robinson 22 (R22) helicopter from Wanaka Helicopters. The weather in the area was hot and calm in the morning.

The Transport Accident Investigation Commission has investigated at least 13 crashes involving Robinson R22 helicopters since 1989. Those crashes resulted in 12 deaths.

Yesterday, helicopter operators said the R22 was reliable.

Detective Derek Shaw, of the Wanaka police, said three officers and four members of the Wanaka Alpine Cliff Rescue Team fought developing strong winds to remove the men's bodies from the steep Homestead Peak.

The crash was first noticed after a farmer went to investigate a fire at about 11am. The fire covered about 0.5ha, Shaw said.

"The aircraft has been destroyed either by a combination of the fire or impact or both. It was an unsurvivable crash."

The rescue team used safety lines to work on the site, about 1500m above sea level.

There was no obvious indication of what caused the crash, he said.

"We've recovered the bodies and secured the scene as best we can. We've prepared it for a CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) investigation. We expect them to get here tomorrow," he said.

Wanaka Helicopters director Simon Spencer Bower said the dead pilot had previously flown with his company to gain his commercial licence. He had accumulated 100 hours of flying time towards the 150 hours necessary.

The man was well known to Wanaka Helicopters instructors because they had all flown with him.

"He was a very confident pilot and a high achiever," Spencer Bower said.

"He'd achieved far more in his 100 hours than many others, including passing all his theory exams."

The man was taking a friend for a local mountain flight when the accident happened, Spencer Bower said.

Wanaka Helicopters suspended flights yesterday.

Spencer Bower had not decided whether to fly today.

The accident was "devastating" to the company.

"It's the first fatal accident we've ever had in 26 years of operation," he said.

Spencer Bower would not speculate on the cause of the crash. He had absolutely no concerns about the reliability of the Robinson 22 helicopter involved.

"It's the world's most reliable helicopter. They are a wonderful little machine."

John Aspinall, of Mount Aspiring Station, said staff at the Wanaka Aerodrome had called him to confirm a report of a fire on the peak.

Aspinall said he drove up the valley about 5km and could see a fire. He reported it to the Department of Conservation, which sent a helicopter with a monsoon bucket just after midday.

It was then they found a crashed helicopter.

"It's about a two-hour climb from the valley floor, but it is steep terrain and quite rugged."It's getting to a level with the wind where a pilot would have to be very careful," he said.

Last night, South Island helicopter operators rejected suggestions the R22 was a bad machine.

Christchurch Helicopters operations manager Andrew Reid said the fact R22s were involved in many accidents was "just a numbers game".

"There are more of them and they are more likely to be flown by less experienced pilots," he said. "It's an exceptionally well-engineered machine and is probably one of the world's most reliable helicopters. It's just nonsense to say that they fall out of the sky."

Christchurch Helicopters operated four R22 helicopters, clocking between 600 and 700 hours a year each for pilot training, aerial photography and agricultural work.

Reid said Spencer Bower was "probably the world's most experienced R22 instructor"..

Mountain flying was unforgiving, Reid said. "Mountain flying is an exacting discipline. It involves caution and requires a lot of training and experience and quite frankly it's not something you could ever claim to be an expert at."

Garden City Helicopters general manager Simon Duncan said his company flew R22s and considered them completely reliable.

"The Robinson does seem to get its fair share of knockers, but we will continue to operate them and we have every faith in them."

Stringent safety requirements made the aircraft safe, Duncan said. Operators were obliged to inspect the R22 every 50 flying hours and to overhaul it every 2200 hours.

Duncan said pilot error was usually the cause of accidents involving the R22"

[Te_Kahu]

Air crash in 'perfect conditions'

06.03.06
By Elizabeth Binning


The crash which claimed the lives of a helicopter pilot and another man in Mt Aspiring National Park yesterday morning happened in perfect flying conditions.

A local resident said there had been a light frost early yesterday morning, which gave way to a "beautiful morning" for flying.

The Canadian-born pilot, 29, had left Wanaka Airport in a Robinson 22 helicopter, owned by Wanaka Helicopters, at 8.30am for a private flight with a 61-year-old American acquaintance who was due to leave the country this week.

Wanaka Helicopters owner Simon Spencer-Bower said the young pilot, who needed 50 more hours of flying to get a commercial licence, filed a flight plan in which he stated he would be back by 9.45am.

When he had not returned by that time, the company sent someone out to fly the route the pilot should have taken.

A pilot noticed a fire burning in tussock near Homestead Peak, west of Lake Wanaka. Thinking the fire might be on Mt Aspiring Station, authorities contacted John Aspinall asking him to check his property.

Mr Aspinall said he drove for about 5km before seeing smoke and up to half a hectare of tussock burning.

He returned home and called DoC, which sent out a helicopter with a monsoon bucket to extinguish the fire. As it arrived, the wreckage was found.

Search and Rescue members arrived at the scene to find the helicopter had sustained extensive fire damage.

The steep terrain and growing winds made the operation to recover the bodies difficult. They were finally retrieved last night by the Police Recovery team and Alpine Cliff Rescue from Wanaka.

Civil Aviation Authority spokesman Bill Sommer said two investigators were expected to arrive in Wanaka today and will visit the crash site tomorrow.

The wreckage will remain on the mountain until the investigation is over.

Mr Spencer-Bower said it was the company's first fatal accident in its 26- year history.

[Te_Kahu]

Police name dead chopper pilot

06.03.06 12.00pm


Police have named the pilot killed in a helicopter crash on Homestead Peak in Mt Aspiring National Park, near Wanaka yesterday.

Police said Keith Andrew MacKenzie, 29, of Ontario, Canada, was a trainee pilot, working in the tourism industry in Wanaka to gain his commercial helicopter rating.

The next-of-kin of Mr MacKenzie's passenger, who also died in the crash, had yet to be advised of his death and his name would be withheld until this was done. He was also believed to be Canadian.

Post mortems on the pair were being carried out in Dunedin this morning.

- NZPA

[Te_Kahu]

Man named after helicopter crash in Wanaka
6/03/2006 13:12:02 Newstalk ZB


The name of the passenger killed in a helicopter crash in Mount Aspiring park has been released.

He was 61-year-old Jonathan Stein from New Hampshire in America.

The wreckage of the Robinson 22 was spotted when DOC staff went into the park to check out reports of a fire near Homestead Peak yesterday.

Mr Stein's family has been informed of his death and a post-mortem examination is taking place in Dunedin today.

The Civil Aviation Authority began its investigation this morning.

[Te_Kahu]

Technical aspects of crash probe begin
04 May 2006
By EMMA DAWE

The technical part of unravelling the cause of a fatal helicopter crash in March at Homestead Peak, near Wanaka, was only just beginning, Civil Aviation Authority chief investigator Tom McCready said.

He still did not know what caused the crash that killed Wanaka-based Canadian pilot Keith MacKenzie, 29, and his American passenger Jonathan Stein, 65, on March 5.

Mr McCready, who is from the North Island, said he initially expected to be in Wanaka investigating the crash for two or three days but had been travelling backwards and forwards to Wanaka for the past six weeks.

After the initial site investigation, it was apparent the wreckage trail was more widespread than first thought, he said.

"Unfortunately the extra area to be searched was across very steep and difficult terrain, which presented some logistical problems."

Mr McCready said he could not thank the Wanaka community enough for its help during the initial recovery and investigation.

Wanaka man Andy Clayton and some of his work colleagues were able to obtain infra-red tracking equipment from Dunedin to help with the investigation, Mr McCready said.

The equipment, which worked by detecting heat differences, was invaluable in finding parts of the helicopter the naked eye would not have been able to spot, he said.

Mr McCready believed the equipment had never been used before in New Zealand in an aircraft accident investigation, although it had been used in search and rescue operations, including the search for millionaire Michael Erceg, who died when his helicopter crashed near Raglan in November.

Mr McCready was involved in that investigation and said that was where he first learned about the infra-red technology.

It was entirely because of the Wanaka community that the equipment was able to be located and used, he said.

"I just told them what I was trying to achieve and this community of very competent locals sorted it all out for me.

"The Wanaka community are very fortunate to have such capable people doing this sort of work on a volunteer basis."

Mr McCready said he had been praised for his work by his bosses but believed the volunteers had made him look good.

Metallurgists in Wellington were still examining parts of the helicopter and the engine would also be taken apart, he said.

[topendtorque]

Been a while--- any info??