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Helicopter missing in New Zealand: Jan 2004

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Helicopter missing in New Zealand: Jan 2004

Old 10th Jan 2004, 03:54
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Hughesy
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This the latest from the Web.

The search for a helicopter missing in the Milford Sound area has been suspended.

It is a week since pilot Campbell Montgomerie and his passenger Hannah Timings were last heard from.

The National Search and Rescue Coodination centre says search efforts by several helicopters Friday were again unsuccessful.

It says the length of time since the Hughes 369 was reported overdue and weather-related survival factors have influenced to the decision to put the search on hold.
 
Old 10th Jan 2004, 08:18
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Arrow

It appears that Ms Timings is from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire acording to the BBC:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/g...re/3384765.stm
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Old 10th Jan 2004, 09:40
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Unhappy

Search for missing helicopter passengers called off

10.01.2004
10.10am
A search for the two people aboard the helicopter that went missing over northern Fiordland a week ago has been called off, rescuers confirmed today.

The search would only be re-activated if "fresh information" was received, National Rescue Co-ordination Centre (NRCC) co-ordinator Ray Parker said.

The decision to indefinitely suspend the search operation was made late last night.

Aboard the missing helicopter were 27-year-old pilot Campbell Montgomerie from Hamilton and his 28-year-old English passenger, Hannah Rose Timings.

The pair had now been missing since last Saturday and bad weather in Fiordland would have impaired the ability of anyone to survive beyond seven days, Mr Parker said.

"One of the things that Search and Rescue doesn't do is concern itself with looking for missing aircraft or finding wreckage.

"We are concerned with saving lives and a search assessment is made on the possibility of survivors."

The weather had frustrated air searches, he said.

"However, at the end of yesterday's flying we'd covered all those areas we would have wished to cover, it just took longer than anticipated.

"There will be no further search activities until there is fresh information."

Mr Parker declined to say what the fresh information could include.

There was the possibility of ongoing private searches by the missing pair's family and friends, he said.

Friends and family of Ms Timings, including her aunt and her father who had travelled from England, were believed to still be in Te Anau.
 
Old 13th Jan 2004, 12:14
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Hannah and Campbell must have some very loyal friends down there.
Thanks to all the search teams for persevering in such difficult conditions....

New Search for Backpacker Missing in 'Copter Crash
http://www.news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2401145
By Lucy Rodgers, PA News


Search and rescue teams looking for a British backpacker missing in New Zealand have started to scour the area on foot, police said today.

Some 30 teams are searching the Fiordland area of the country’s South Island for traces of the helicopter which disappeared with 28-year-old Hannah Timings and pilot Campbell Montgomerie, 27, on board.

Ms Timings, from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, and Mr Montgomerie, from Hamilton, New Zealand, lost contact with air traffic controllers on January 3, while flying in poor weather.

It is feared they crashed between Queenstown and Milford Sound in the Fiordland National Park.

After a number of helicopter searches failed to find any trace of the pair or their helicopter, rescue workers are now attempting to find them on foot.

Constable Finn Murphy of Te Anau police, which is co-ordinating the search, said: “There are 30 ground search teams and two helicopters currently out there.

“They are searching the close-cover ground, covered with dense vegetation, which cannot be seen clearly from the air.

“They are particularly searching an area called Hollyford Valley because it was near to here that people said they heard a machine, which could have been the helicopter.

“If it went into the trees we would be unlikely to spot it from the air.”

Mr Murphy said the teams would be starting from the top of the ridges, working their way to the valley below.

Bryan Nicholson, spokesman for the British High Commission in New Zealand, confirmed the search for the pair was continuing.

“The last information that we have is that the search is continuing on foot,” he said. “Weather permitting they will be out on foot and there will be a number of teams.”

Police in Te Anau had called off the air search at the end of last week and said it must be presumed that the Ms Timings and Mr Montgomerie were dead.

It is now down to rescuers on foot to check the mountainous area where the four-seater privately-owned helicopter was lost.

Ms Timings, who worked as a furniture buyer in London between her travels, had been visiting friends in New Zealand since October and was due to return to the UK in March.

Her brother, Sam Timings, 25, described his sister as a seasoned traveller who could not settle for long. Her father, Philip, has flown to New Zealand to assist with the search.

Ms Timings and Mr Montgomerie, took off at 7.50am on Saturday January 3 local time (1850 GMT Friday) from Howden Hut, west of Queenstown, and were heading for Milford Sound.

Just under an hour later Mr Montgomerie radioed Milford Sound air traffic control saying he was in cloud and asked for directions through the mountains.

Police said contact was lost six minutes later.
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Old 14th Jan 2004, 17:05
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Further search unsuccessful

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.

source
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Old 21st Nov 2012, 20:39
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Missing Heli fround in Fiordland

"A specialist police search team will be dispatched to a Fiordland valley this morning after the wreckage of a helicopter was discovered above the snowline.

Police were advised about 4pm yesterday that people on a sightseeing helicopter flight over the Hollyford Valley had spotted what appeared to be the wreckage of a helicopter in the Humboldt Creek area.

Police from Queenstown flew into the area in the early evening to confirm the sighting and were able to complete a limited investigation at the scene.

A police search and rescue and alpine cliff rescue staff are to travel to the site this morning with the aim of identifying the helicopter and conducting a scene examination.

Senior Sergeant Dave Raynes, of Invercargill police, said the wreckage was believed to be several years old.

‘‘Most of the time it would be covered in snow,’’ he said.

Raynes said police had some idea of the identity of the crashed helicopter but did not want to make it public before informing families of those who were believed to have been on board.

‘‘We have some idea what the helicopter was and who was on it — we are going up to confirm it.’'

"We don't know for sure - there are a number of missing helicopters in New Zealand. It appears to be a number of years old.''

stuff.co.nz
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Old 21st Nov 2012, 22:40
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My understanding is that it is an MD500 that went missing in 2004 with 2 POB.
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Old 22nd Nov 2012, 00:21
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Helicopter Wreckage Found In Fiordland - national | Stuff.co.nz

The wreckage of a helicopter discovered in Fiordland yesterday is believed to be a chopper which went missing with a Waikato man and English tourist on board nearly nine years ago.

Glacier Southern Lakes Helicopters pilot Brendan Hiatt yesterday discovered the wreckage of the helicopter partially emerged in snow when he took tourists on a sightseeing flight over Hollyford Valley.
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Old 22nd Nov 2012, 00:37
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Covered this story in a previous life as a journo, very mysterious the way it just vanished.
Remember some SAR speculation at the time that the EPIRB antenna may have snapped off or been damaged in the impact - hence inability to find it.
I thought they weren't vulnerable to that sort of thing happening?
A remote and very beautiful part of the country...
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Old 22nd Nov 2012, 01:35
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I remember this incident, there was a message sent from the aircraft saying that they were in bad weather...

I'd always hoped that they'd be found and it's good that they finally have been.
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Old 22nd Nov 2012, 02:42
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that the EPIRB antenna may have snapped off or been damaged in the impact - hence inability to find it.
I thought they weren't vulnerable to that sort of thing happening?


Tartere, I think you will find that only about 15% of all missing (crashed) aircraft are actually found using an ELB. There is though a better way of tracking and finding aircraft these days.. Spidertracks and the likes now produce GPS / Satellite tracking and this has proved to be a much more useful tool in finding 'lost' aircraft. For the cost involved all aircraft should have one of these installed.
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Old 22nd Nov 2012, 02:49
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Following the Michael Erceg crash in NZ many now do.
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Old 22nd Nov 2012, 05:20
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From memory, the amount of $$ spent on the Erceg search would have been enough to install a Spider in every aircraft in NZ, and pay for the running costs for two years!
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Old 22nd Nov 2012, 11:23
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Lots of detail here...
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Old 22nd Nov 2012, 12:16
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Photo

BBC News - New Zealand DNA tests on helicopter crash bodies

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Old 22nd Nov 2012, 14:35
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I am confused! Initial reports in 2004 said the helicopter was green, the post by Nige shows a photo of a black helicopter and the photo of the wreckage looks like a blue and white machine?
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Old 22nd Nov 2012, 20:12
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For international readers - very good TV3 report here from one of my former colleagues, Tsehai Tiffin.
It shows video of the terrain and how hard the wreckage is to spot.
Motion Lotion - tks for pointer to Spidertracks - very interesting.

Last edited by tartare; 22nd Nov 2012 at 20:18.
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Old 22nd Nov 2012, 22:51
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Newforest2 - Possibly, after nine years, mainly under snow and then bleached by some summer sun with a high UV factor the colour has changed.
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Old 23rd Nov 2012, 09:03
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As eni fule kno,,,yellow+blue =green.....It's a bit more complex than that, but anybody who has looked at vehicles, buildings,aircraft and boats must have noticed that all paint fades and certain colours are more prone to fade than others.....yellow, fades quite rapidly and needs a lot of solid white to block it's translucency...Red, bleeds through almost anything usually needs a coat of black to "block" it- fades to chalky orange....blue ..will often cast a purplish haze on the surface as it fades.....green....see start these are generalisations and modern paints are more colourfast but as Parabellum said, Clean air at Altitude= strong UV add strong winds, sandblasting effect of snow/ice crystals plus several years of heat/cool cycling whilst exposed to the other factors and you're asking a hell of a lot from a fresh repaint, let alone one that had probably done a good bit before it was crashed.
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Old 23rd Nov 2012, 17:30
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Reported now in the Daily Mail.

British backpacker Hannah Timings' body recovered after helicopter crash in New Zealand eight years ago - AOL Travel UK
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