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Post by Dave Homewood on Mar 20, 2024 23:02:50 GMT 12
From The Press, 16 May 1959:
CRASH IN 1956
Plane Found, No Trace Of Pilot
(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND. May 15.
A makeshift bed of rubber cushions from plane seats was found by a police party which went into the bush today at Raupunga, south of Wairoa, following the discovery of a wrecked aircraft.
The party, which returned to Wairoa tonight, also found the aircraft’s medical chest which had been hacked open with a tomahawk. There was no sign of the pilot.
The aircraft, a single-engine Taylorcraft monoplane piloted by its owner, Mr A. N. Clark, of Thames, went missing on a flight from Rotorua to Wairoa on 1 November 23. 1956.
It was found by Mr Victor Keen, manager of a logging company, late on Thursday afternoon, in bushy country about five miles along a road at the back of Waireka Station, south of Mohaka. Nearby, he found the aircraft’s logbook and other papers which had been ruined by rain.
Sergeant W T. Pender, of the Wairoa police, two constables and other searchers tramped through dense bush to the aircraft. On his return. Sergeant Pender said: “We found the seats under some fern about 18 yards from the plane, evidently to form a sort of bed. The medical chest was smashed open with the axe, and was in a cave five yards away from the bed.
Fifty yards further away, a pair of sunglasses in a case was found.
The aircraft was not badly damaged. There was a hole in the fuselage and one wing and the propeller were bent. When the plane went missing it was thought to have crashed in the rugged heavily-forested Urewera country and Air Force planes searched that area for several days.
Tomorrow morning, another party will leave for the vicinity to continue the search for traces of Mr Clark.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Mar 20, 2024 23:09:28 GMT 12
From The Press, 18 May 1959:
FATE OF PILOT IN BUSH CRASH UNSOLVED
(New Zealand Press Association)
AUCKLAND, May 17.
The fate of the pilot of the light aircraft found in rugged country inland from Wairoa last week— two years and a half after it was lost on a cross-country flight — was still undetermined tonight after two search parties had combed the area during the weekend. The search parties believe that the pilot. Mr A. N. Clark, a Thames contractor, probably escaped without serious injury from the crashed plane.
Signs found around the aircraft indicated he had sheltered nearby and then attempted to follow watercourses leading to the coast. The week-end search parties scoured an area of 700 yards radius around the aircraft without success. Another party will enter the bush at dawn tomorrow to follow a nearby stream where a pair of sunglasses was found.
Police heading the search for the pilot are puzzled by several things. One of these is the discovery of the aircraft’s hatchet near the scene of the accident.
“It is the last thing we would expect the pilot to leave behind,” said Sergeant W. T. Pender, of the Napier police, who is in charge of the search.
Bandages Removed
The medical chest carried in the plane was found 15 feet away in a depression formed by an underground stream. Although secured only by a strip of adhesive tape, the lid had been broken with the hatchet and all the bandages removed.
The Inspector of Aircraft Accidents (Wing Commander O. J. O’Brien) is due in Wairoa early this week to investigate the accident.
The aircraft, a two-seater single-engined Taylorcraft monoplane, was lost on November 23, 1956, while on a flight from Rotorua to Wairoa. Mr Clark was on his way to inspect approaches to a new bridge on the Napier-Wairoa State highway.
The aircraft was found on the crest of a small hill between Lake Waikaremoana and Rapunga by Mr Victor Keen, manager of a logging company. It was nose down in heavy bush less than half a mile from where loggers have been cutting timber. Mr Keen found the cabin door open and the logbook, pilot’s licence and other papers in a sodden leather case nearby.
One wing of the plane had struck a large tree and the aircraft had come to rest with its nose tilted downward and its tail in the air.
Propeller Broken
The propeller had broken off, but the engine was almost undamaged. A tree stump had smashed through a wing and another had stuck through the fuselage behind the pilot’s cabin. There was a tear in the after fuselage, but the tail was undamaged.
Nearby in the tangled undergrowth Mr Keen found a small makeshift bed made of two cushions from the seat of the aircraft. The cushions had been placed on top of paper wadding in the shelter of a clump of ferns.
Fifty yards away, where the underground stream came to the surface, there was a pair of sunglasses in a rotted case. There was no other trace of the pilot. The only evidence unearthed by the parties that scoured the area at the week-end was three unopened morphine tubes from the medicine chest. These were found a few yards from the aircraft.
Searchers will concentrate tomorrow on the theory that Mr Clark made his way along the stream in an effort to reach the coast. The stream eventually flows into the Waiau river. However, it is two days’ journey to the Waiau, and another day’s to the nearest habitation.
The theory that Mr Clark was not seriously injured is supported by the condition of the cockpit, which virtually escaped damage. The safety seat belt in the pilot’s seat was found undone, but not broken.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Mar 20, 2024 23:11:24 GMT 12
From The Press, 19 May 1959:
SEARCH FOR PILOT
Wintry Weather Forces Halt
(New Zealand Press Association) WAIROA. May 18.
Cold, wintry weather has forced the police to call off temporarily the search for further signs of Mr A. N. Clark, whose crashed monoplane was found by a bushman in rugged country 60 miles north-west of Wairoa last Thursday.
Mr Clark’s plane was posted missing in 1956 on a flight from Rotorua to Wairoa. It is now understood that the police intend to persevere with the search. Today a party of police and experienced bushmen, led by Constable L. Dolman, of Tuai, trudged through steep, wet bush country, working out from the wrecked plane. They extended the radius of the search beyond the 350 yards limit reached on previous occasions, but found no further traces of Mr Clark’s movements after the plane had crashed.
Conditions were very difficult, with poor visibility, high winds, and frequent cold showers. When the weather improves the search will be resumed, but it is unlikely that any fresh effort will be made tomorrow.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Mar 20, 2024 23:15:39 GMT 12
From The Press, 25 May 1959:
BUSH-SEARCH FOR PILOT
Remains Found Near Plane
(New Zealand Press Association) WAIROA, May 24.
The remains of Alexander Neville Clark, whose crashed aircraft was found in heavy bush country south-east of Lake Waikaremoana about a week ago, were found by a search party on Saturday. The plane was missing from November 23, 1956, when it was on a flight from Rotorua to Wairoa.
Constables L. Dolman and R. Hudson, with Messrs P. Ravenstein, D. Fryer, M. Logan, T. van Engelen and W. Byford, entered the bush after leaving Wairoa at 5.30 a.m. The remains were found about 50 yards up an incline from the wrecked aircraft.
It is known that Mr Clark suffered two fractures of his right forearm, and two cracked vertebrae. It is presumed that Mr Clark released himself from the aircraft and established a rough camp about 18 feet away.
Sergeant T. Pender, who is acting in charge of the Wairoa police station, said the search was one of the most remarkable on record and probably the first where a body had not been found inside a crashed aircraft.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Mar 21, 2024 12:32:45 GMT 12
I just had a call from Don Subritzky who told me more about this case.
He worked with a mate called Norm Jepsen, known as Truckie. Apparently Truckie worked for the logging company, and he said that the company had been caught stealing trees from the Maori land adjacent to the forest block that they were licenced to take logs from. As a result they were told a firebreak was to be cut through the bush between their block and the Maori block so they knew where the boundary was.
Truckey was on the bulldozer and had a mate ahead of him with a flag that he was aiming at as he cut a swath through the bush. Suddenly the flag man yelled to stop, and come look. They'd found the aircraft. They looked it over and Truckey was amazed to see a brand new and expensive looking socket set lying there in the plane. They thought nothing more of it and carried on their work.
A few days later they were in the Wairoa pub when Truckey mentioned to a local about the crashed plane they'd found. It was only then that he realised, on being told by the local, that there was a missing aeroplane and pilot. Truckey and his mate had assumed it was well known about. So next thing he was being interviewed by the police and they went up there next morning to show them.
So despite what the newspaper article said, it was not the logging company owner that discovered the aeroplane, it was Truckey and another mill worker.
Don said that Truckey reckoned the search parties crashed around in the bush for days and found nothing, and then gave up. They had, as the article suggested, assumed he'd gone downstream. However a few days later Truckey was lying in his bunk talking it over with his mate and said, "This was three years ago that it when missing..." and he realised back then there was likely logging going on nearby. Next day he got up and went and checked the logging road maps from 1956.
Armed with this new info he realised that rather than go downstream, the pilot was likely hearing the logging trucks on the nearby road uphill from his crash site. So Truckey and his mate when back to the plane wreckage and then started to walk uphill towards where they knew from the 1956 map where the road was. And that proved absolutely right, because after a while Truckey's mate spotted a skeletal hand protruding from a clump of moss, and they'd found his body.
Amazing extra detail, and it shows how the newspaper did not quite tell the whole story. Apparently the hand had something clutched in it. They could not work out what it was but they asked the cops after the body was removed and they would not say. I wondered if the pilot had used the socket set to undo a compass and take that with him.
A very sad case, had he made it to the road he may well have lived.
Don add one more detail. Apparently some time later someone went in there and stole the engine from the aircraft wreck!
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Post by planewriting on Mar 21, 2024 14:37:42 GMT 12
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Post by chrism on Mar 21, 2024 17:24:32 GMT 12
Wow pretty amazing and horrifying story! Can't imagine what the poor pilot went through. The initial thoughts of the searchers that the pilot wouldn't have been too badly hurt and tried to walk out were way off the mark!
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Post by oj on Mar 21, 2024 18:30:51 GMT 12
Why the police were evasive about the contents of the clutched hand eludes me; there can be no valid reason.
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Post by JW on Mar 21, 2024 19:17:06 GMT 12
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Post by eieio on Mar 21, 2024 20:03:24 GMT 12
Galatea aerodrome and school are adjacent ,I was standard four in 1956 ,ATY had been in to the field a couple of times. During the search for ATY the airforce used the field for a base for .Harvards and Devons were pretty exciting back then. Many years later a member of Hamilton AFA told me he on a search and rescue party whose task was to carry the engine out. [so who is telling porkies ]
I spent years looking for a foto of ATY with a low back as i remembered its see thru cockpit.
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Post by eieio on Mar 21, 2024 20:10:18 GMT 12
PS........I did have a photo x NZ Heraid I think of the aircraft in the bush.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Mar 21, 2024 21:40:25 GMT 12
I guess the engine may have been removed for the investigation.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Mar 25, 2024 19:59:41 GMT 12
I found another article, from the Press, 27 June 1959:
BODY IDENTIFIED BY FRACTURE
Pilot Of Long-Lost Plane
(New Zealand Press Association) WAIROA, June 26.
A previous fracture suffered to the left forearm by Alexander Neville Clark, whose crashed aircraft was found in heavy bush south-east of Lake Waikaremoana on May 14, gave definite identification to remains found near that aircraft two years and a half after it had become missing on a flight from Rotorua to Wairoa.
This evidence was given by Dr. L. A. Riddell before the District Coroner 'Mr C. V. Chamberlain) at an inquest today into Clark's death.
It was the doctor's opinion that death was caused by extreme exposure and the Coroner's verdict was given accordingly.
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