CAANZ.
 

The NZCAA have kept up with their Gestapo tactic's, shoot the pilot, for making a mercy flight or flights to rescue an injured climber out of rugged terrain in bloodshot VFR conditions.
The pilot Dave Armstrong a very experienced rotary wing pilot had a shady medical,. but weighed up the risks and rescued a male climber with two broken femurs.
CAANZ have taken Marshal to court where the judge obeyed the letter of the law and dumped on Marshal big time, with even a threat of incarceration and a savage fine( which the NZ public have covered by way of donations) for doing the mercy flight even though his medical was withdrawn by the NZCAA medical unit.
G Richardson
:*

The CAA Director was interviewed on Radio NZ yesterday.

He said that if the pilot hadn't falsified records and lied to investigators on numerous occasions, they would have taken a very lenient approach to his trangression, a flexibility that the law specifically provides for

I initially agreed with popular sentiment that this was a pointless prosecution and he should be warned but not charged. I even considered donating towards his legal costs. However as the facts came out I have changed my opinion. He was not prosecuted for just one emergency situation. I believe it was five flights over a period of time, falsifying records and giving false statements to investigators. I'm sorry, but this is a bridge too far. If he undertook one emergency flight to save a life, immediately reported it and cooperated with investigators then I would have a lot more sympathy, but this was not the case. As it turned out, the fine is minimal and I think he can count himself lucky.