Merged: Mid Air Collision Near Palmerston North
Trainee pilots killed in mid-air collision
09 February 2006
Two trainee pilots from Massey University's School of Aviation were killed in a mid-air collision near Shannon in the Manawatu this morning.
Two single-engine Piper Cherokee training planes from the school collided over Opiki, 18km southwest of Palmerston North, about 10am before crashing on to farm land about 100 metres apart.
Debris was scattered over a 500 square-metre area, with one wrecked plane coming down in a paddock and the second in a drain.
Police late this afternoon released the names of the pilots.
They were Brandon Gedge, 20, of Tauranga and Jong Ho Hwang, 27, of Waitakere, Auckland.
Both students were in the same intake at the aviation school.
Head of Palmerston North-based school Captain Ashok Poduval expressed his sorrow about the accident.
He said the school was offering trauma counselling to staff and students impacted by the accident.
The university would work with the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to establish the cause of the collision, he said.
Capt Poduval said he would be contacting the families of the dead students to offer the university's support.
Opiki resident Brian Jones was pruning fruit in his garden when he heard a huge bang.
A plane did a "whirly-down" to the ground followed by a wing crashing down, the retired 75-year-old said.
"All the fire service is out there. . .there are police cars in all directions and an ambulance."
Mr Jones said he only saw one plane go down.
"The plane is just lying there in a field."
The Square Trust Rescue Helicopter was in the area on another job when the accident occurred.
The helicopter with pilot and medical personnel onboard arrived at the scene within a couple of minutes.
The crew was able to ascertain that both pilots of the crashed aircraft were dead.
The planes crashed on the Opiki farm of Rodney Hudson, which was cordoned off by police.
Another Opiki resident Rachel Taylor said she heard a "big bang" and ran out of her home to see what appeared to be tinfoil falling out of the sky.
Mrs Taylor said her home – where she and her husband are dairy farmers – was only two paddocks away from the crash site but the site was obscured by trees.
"By the time I walked outside there were already lots of tractors and motorbikes at the site and I was really amazed at how quickly all the services got there."
Mrs Taylor said she even though she was looking at the wreckage she had no idea what it was.
"It doesn't even look like a plane."
Mrs Taylor said it was not until her husband, Wayne, called her that she knew that it had been a plane crash.
"He was working on the other side of the crash site and he called to make sure I wasn't hurt or that it hadn't hit our property."
Mrs Taylor said the wreckage site was a "total mess on the ground".
Another local farmer, who lives around 700m from the crash site, said he rushed to the crash site of one of the planes and saw a body in the mangled wreckage.
"The pilot in the first plane was dead. We didn't actually realise there was a second plane until a neighbour came over and said there was another plane," the man, who didn't want to be named, told police.
He then went to the site of the second crashed plane about 300m away.
"That plane looked like it had nosed into a drain and it was upside-down," he said.
"One of the farmers tried to climb in through the tail of the second plane to get a pulse (from the pilot) but I don't think he could actually get to him," he said.
He said both planes were mangled and there was a strong smell of fuel.
The man said two builders who were working outside on his house heard the plane go down and raised the alarm.
"I ran outside and saw the last flakes of the plane coming down," he said.
He then rang the police and went to the crash sites.
"I think the wing fell off the first one," he said.
The man said a helicopter and another plane was in the area spraying potatoes around the time of the crash.
"There were a lot of aircraft in a small area and things got a bit haywire," he said.
"I think the two planes (which crashed) were practising emergency landings. . .you know when they cut the engines," he said.
The New Zealand Rescue Co-ordination Centre was alerted to the crash about 10am after a report of wreckage on the ground north of Shannon.
Ken Mitchell, a communications manager for Airways New Zealand, which is responsible for air traffic in controlled airspaces, said the planes were in an uncontrolled space, where pilots took responsibility for their own navigation and safety.
CAA spokesman Bill Sommer said the Accident Investigation Commission or CAA would now be investigating.
Authorities closed the air space over the crash sites, and police restricted ground travel in the area immediately after the crash.
Massey University's School of Aviation started in 1990, and in 1998 expanded to Auckland.
In 2003, consultants recommended consolidating the operation on the Palmerston North campus and the Flight Systems Centre at Palmerston North Airport.
At that time its target was to graduate 40 new airline pilots a year, along with graduates in associated aviation professional fields.
S2K