Post by Dave Homewood on Apr 10, 2011 15:54:03 GMT 12
www.stuff.co.nz/marlborough-express/4869869/Search-for-Olympians-microlight-narrows
Search for Olympian's microlight narrows
PENNY WARDLE Last updated 15:37 10/04/2011
Rescuers have pinpointed D'Urville Island in the Marlborough Sounds as one of two places an overdue microlight piloted by an 86-year-old former Olympian may have disappeared.
Auckland businessman Geoff Smale, who represented New Zealand in yachting at the 1968 Mexico Olympic Games, left North Shore in Auckland about 11am on Saturday. He planned to fly via Wanganui, Blenheim and Christchurch to Ashburton but failed to turn up by 5pm.
Rescue Co-ordination Centre spokesman Ross Henderson said a Philips Search and Rescue Trust aeroplane from Hamilton would fly between Auckland, Stratford and D'Urville Island after Airways Corporation radar data showed an aircraft disappearing about 1pm on Saturday.
A helicopter from the New Plymouth-based Taranaki Rescue Helicopter Trust would search the area from Auckland to south of Taharoa in the Waikato, where a second aircraft disappeared from radar.
Henderson said a Wellington Westpac Rescue Trust helicopter today searched Marlborough for the microlight, sweeping the east coast from Wellington to Conway Flat, back to Kaikoura and up the Clarence River to Omaka.
It then flew west through the Wairau Valley almost to St Arnaud, up the Wairau River, to Hanmer Springs and back to Kaikoura.
Microlight pilot Mike Gray, of the Marlborough Aero Club, said the Westpac crew refuelled at Omaka airfield, at Blenheim about 1pm today.
Flying conditions over Smale's route were good yesterday, except in Marlborough where a ''cyclonic gloom'' brought cloud cover down to about 250-400 metres, Gray said.
''The higher you fly, the safer you are,'' Gray said. ''Once you get lower there are less options.''
The missing microlight was an endurance aircraft said to be capable of flying for up to nine hours, Gray said.
If Smale had suffered a medical problem such as a heart attack, his plane could have continued unpiloted until it ran out of fuel or hit a mountain.
A stricken plane ''does not drop like a stone or a brick'', he said. For every 12 metres a plane glided forward it would drop one metre.
Henderson said the aircraft was capable of 250kmh and could have completed the flight without refuelling stops.
It was a fully enclosed professional machine which looked more like a small plane and it carried a personal locator beacon, radio, radar transponder and cellphone.
- The Marlborough Express
Search for Olympian's microlight narrows
PENNY WARDLE Last updated 15:37 10/04/2011
Rescuers have pinpointed D'Urville Island in the Marlborough Sounds as one of two places an overdue microlight piloted by an 86-year-old former Olympian may have disappeared.
Auckland businessman Geoff Smale, who represented New Zealand in yachting at the 1968 Mexico Olympic Games, left North Shore in Auckland about 11am on Saturday. He planned to fly via Wanganui, Blenheim and Christchurch to Ashburton but failed to turn up by 5pm.
Rescue Co-ordination Centre spokesman Ross Henderson said a Philips Search and Rescue Trust aeroplane from Hamilton would fly between Auckland, Stratford and D'Urville Island after Airways Corporation radar data showed an aircraft disappearing about 1pm on Saturday.
A helicopter from the New Plymouth-based Taranaki Rescue Helicopter Trust would search the area from Auckland to south of Taharoa in the Waikato, where a second aircraft disappeared from radar.
Henderson said a Wellington Westpac Rescue Trust helicopter today searched Marlborough for the microlight, sweeping the east coast from Wellington to Conway Flat, back to Kaikoura and up the Clarence River to Omaka.
It then flew west through the Wairau Valley almost to St Arnaud, up the Wairau River, to Hanmer Springs and back to Kaikoura.
Microlight pilot Mike Gray, of the Marlborough Aero Club, said the Westpac crew refuelled at Omaka airfield, at Blenheim about 1pm today.
Flying conditions over Smale's route were good yesterday, except in Marlborough where a ''cyclonic gloom'' brought cloud cover down to about 250-400 metres, Gray said.
''The higher you fly, the safer you are,'' Gray said. ''Once you get lower there are less options.''
The missing microlight was an endurance aircraft said to be capable of flying for up to nine hours, Gray said.
If Smale had suffered a medical problem such as a heart attack, his plane could have continued unpiloted until it ran out of fuel or hit a mountain.
A stricken plane ''does not drop like a stone or a brick'', he said. For every 12 metres a plane glided forward it would drop one metre.
Henderson said the aircraft was capable of 250kmh and could have completed the flight without refuelling stops.
It was a fully enclosed professional machine which looked more like a small plane and it carried a personal locator beacon, radio, radar transponder and cellphone.
- The Marlborough Express
