Hunt for lost helicopter in Hollyford Valley suspended
14 January 2004
By BRUCE FRASER
Ground parties yesterday searched steep forested slopes on the western side of the Hollyford Valley but did not find a helicopter missing with two people aboard since January 3.
After arriving back in Te Anau at 9.30 last night, search controller John De Lury said the search had now been suspended.
Two helicopters had placed 35 searchers in nine groups near the bushline in an area between Caples Creek and Gunn's Camp.
Some climbed down to valley level during the day, searching the steep valley sides, which had a high bush canopy that made it hard to see into from the air. Others headed up to the bush line and there were also aerial searches by two helicopters.
The search area was believed to be where the helicopter's last radio call was made.
Friends and family members of pilot Campbell Montgomerie, 27, of Hamilton, and his 28-year-old passenger Hannah Rose Timings, of Cheltenham, England, spent the day at the operation's base at the Hollyford airstrip waiting for news.
Mr Montgomerie's father Ian said he wished to thank the search team and all the people supporting the search effort.
Ms Timings' father Phil said he was very grateful for the strong support he had seen in Te Anau for the search.
"All sorts of people – a lady who turned up with cakes at the search base yesterday – she just came in." Far more searchers than expected had volunteered, he said. More and bigger search groups had been deployed as a result.
"I don't know what more can be done – short of cutting every tree down. It's just the way it is.
"It just goes with the territory.
She was not a boring person – she was a very clever, adventurous girl, a girl who wanted to see the world.
"She was a woman, of course, but she was my girl.
"I thought, coming over here, I was going to bring her home – but now I'm going home without her." Ms Timings, who worked as a fashion furniture designer at Viscount Linley, met Mr Montgomerie before Christmas, through mutual friends, and just hit it off, he said.
The searchers needed more information, such as reports from trampers or hunters.
"They're going on little scraps of information now.
They could be just a valley away – who knows." During the coroner's inquiry Mr Timings planned to raise the issue of why the helicopter's locator beacon did not activate.
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