Two articles that appeared on the same page of The Press newspaper, 22 August 1986. I am guessing the Navy did not locate it?
Divers hope to relocate wrecked W.W.II planeThe Royal New Zealand Navy hopes one of its diving teams will be able to find again the wreckage of a biplane discovered four years ago by a New Plymouth crayfish diver. It is believed the wreck is probably that of a Fairey Gordon aircraft, N.Z.617, which disappeared on Monday, December 7, 1942.
Although the Air Force has just learnt of the find, the Air Force Safety Officer, Squadron Leader Dale Webb, hopes the wreck can be found again. At the time the diver found it nobody he told seemed interested, he said. The matter was dropped until he mentioned it to a friend in aviation.
“He described the wreck as appearing to be that of a large biplane with two cockpits. The fuselage was largely intact although no fabric remains. He also saw a set of wings and other debris in the area — but of course there were no identifying marks,” said Squadron Leader Webb. Efforts have been made by the R.N.Z.A.F. to find any next of kin of the men but these have been unsuccessful.
Pinpointing the site has been possible from land references and sea contour charts, according to Squadron Leader Webb. “Five to seven kilometres north of New Plymouth” was as specific as he would be in order to prevent illegal disturbance of the aircraft.
“Crashed military aircraft are never abandoned by the Crown,” he said. “Even when we decide not to recover them they remain Crown property.”
Occasionally though, interested preservation groups have been allowed to salvage wrecks and keep the finds. It was important that people finding possible aircraft wreckage reported it as soon as possible to some authority such as the police or Air Force, said Squadron Leader Webb. As well as legal ownership considerations there were responsibilities towards any human remains.
If, as was a remote possibility, the wreckage was not that of the Fairey Gordon then a point of history might be settled concerning the first aircraft crossing of the Tasman Sea. While Sir Charles Kingsford Smith and his crew of three in the “Southern Cross” is credited with the first crossing, which touched down at Wigram on September 11, 1928, there had been an unsuccessful attempt eight months earlier.
The Ryan monoplane of two New Zealanders, John Moncrief and George Hood, G-AUNZ, left Richmond, near Sydney, on January 10, 1928, planning landfall near Wellington, but the men were never seen again. Claimed sightings of the aircraft were reported from along much of New Zealand’s west coast. Although the Marlborough sounds are thought the most likely area for the Ryan to be found if it reached the country, no other civilian aircraft is recorded as being missing in the area of the Taranaki wreckage.
“In any case, whatever is down there will close another open chapter of New Zealand’s aviation history,” Squadron Leader Webb said.
In addition to the missing Fairey Gordon seven other New Zealand-based R.N.Z.A.F. aircraft have disappeared. All but one of the incidents occurred during World War II.
The others are:
• January, 1942. Harvard N.Z. 961 flying from Woodbourne to Lake Grassmere. Explosion heard off Cape Campbell and a seat later discovered on the beach.
• August, 1942. Harvard N.Z. 964 flying, training around Woodbourne. Believed crashed at sea.
• October, 1942. Vildebeest N.Z. 122 on antisubmarine and shipping patrol from Waipapakauri. Wheel later found on beach.
• December, 1942. Vincent N.Z. 332 missing from shipping patrol off Gisborne coast. Believed crashed at sea.
• November, 1944. Corsair N.Z. 5517 believed crashed in Westport-Inangahua Junction area on cross-country navigational exercise.
• April, 1945. Corsair N.Z. 5544 missing from night flying out of Ardmore.
• March, 1955. Mustang N.Z. 2425 missing from low flying and aerobatic sortie out of Whenuapai. Washed up wreckage fragments indicated a crash at sea.
Cloudless sky greeted N.Z. 617
PA Wellington
Fairey Gordon N.Z. 617 was one of 41 of its type bought from the Royal Air Force in 1939. Fifteen were Mark II with the remainder being Mark I. But by 1941 the Harvard aircraft was taking over as the advanced training aircraft and the Fairey Gordon was relegated to other roles. For N.Z. 617 this meant duty as an air gunnery target tug with the No. 1 Operational Training Unit at R.N.Z.A.F. Station New Plymouth.
On the morning of Monday, December 7, 1942, the aircraft was signed out that day at 1.45 p.m. by its pilot, Sergeant Peter Morley, aged 23. His was the thirteenth flight of the day and the Wellingtonian simply smiled and replied “not in the least” when asked jokingly if he was superstitious.
Sergeant Morley had more than 236 hours of solo flying experience with almost six hours on the Fairey Gordon type. He had joined the R.N.Z.A.F. in 1941 and gained his flying badge on September 6 of that year. His crewman, Leading Aircraftman Thomas Davies, aged 28, had joined the R.N.Z.A.F. in 1938. He had been posted to the station less than a week before and also was from Wellington.
There was not a cloud in the fine summer sky as N.Z. 617 took off from the Bell Block airfield with its crew of two, both wearing lifejackets.
Also to take off was Hudson N.Z. 2092 flown by Flight Lieutenant John Paterson and carrying a navigator and two wireless operators. The two aircraft met over Waitara and flew to the firing area off the coast. Practice shots at the drogues were completed by the Hudson’s navigator and one of the wireless operators, and Lieutenant Paterson later said he then overhauled the Gordon and signalled it to return to base. The Fairey Gordon failed to return.
A Court of Inquiry eight days later put the cause of the accident as "obscure” with the aircraft and its occupants missing presumed lost.
A couple of days after that the body of Sergeant Morey was washed up on the beach near Kawhia. He was found to have died by drowning. No remains of the crewman were found.
On March 12, 1944, a wheel presumed to have belonged to the Fairey Gordon was washed up on Motunui Beach. It appeared that the wheel was damaged when the aircraft crashed as the hub had been completely torn out, although the tyre was in good condition and the tube still inflated.