Crikey, I hope the pilot and the passenger recover quickly from their ordeal. Do we know who the pilot was or is that still under wraps? Chances are I will know them...
Updated 12:39PM Monday August 27, 2007
By Alanah May Eriksen
The pilot and a co-pilot of a light plane were rescued last night after their plane went down in mountainous terrain in the Southern Alps.
The co-pilot walked 5km to a hut, where he was found by rescuers.
The pilot was later winched to safety from the crash site and was flown to hospital.
The two men were named this afternoon as flight instructor Richard Bateman, 27, and Nicholas Eagleson, age unknown, both of Auckland.
Mr Eagleson is in a serious condition, but is conscious, at Christchurch Hospital. Mr Bateman is in a stable condition in Timaru Hospital.
A search and rescue operation was launched after the plane - a two-seater Robin R2120 flying from Christchurch to Mount Cook - was reported overdue at 4pm.
Three hours later searchers found Mr Bateman at a hut in Folk Stream between Lake Tekapo and Lake Pukaki after he walked about five kilometres from the crash site in steep terrain to try to raise the alarm.
Several hours later Mr Eagleson was found alive at the crash site and was winched to safety.
He was stabilised by medics and flown to Christchurch Hospital.
Rescue Coordination Centre New Zealand mission controller Dave Wilson said the Westpac Rescue Helicopter crew from Christchurch had managed to winch the pilot from the side of the mountain "in very difficult conditions".
A helicopter spokesman said the crash site, in Mount Cook's Gammock Range, was "deep in the Southern Alps".
He said weather conditions were good but it was "fairly steep mountainside".
Both men were members of Auckland's North Shore Aero Club and the plane was one of a group of six or seven aircraft on the club's annual trip to the South Island.
Westpac Rescue Helicopter general manager Simon Duncan said the area where the plane went down is some of New Zealand's most rugged terrain.
"You're starting to deal with air craft performance. It's definitely tiger country," Mr Duncan said.
Search and Rescue officer Chris Bayliss said the terrain is best described as scree.
"You walk three paces up and go two back," she said.
Ms Bayliss said according to the map, the man who walked away from the accident was walking on a valley floor and it would be relatively flat.
"It was a steep gorge and he would have been walking on the bottom of it," she said.
Club president Ian Couper said the plane had left North Shore on Saturday and the trip had been due to last a week.
"The whole object is that apart from it being a social trip it gives the pilots experience in flying in mountain conditions they wouldn't normally experience around the Auckland area," he said.
Mr Couper did not yet know the details of the crash, but said the club's pilots were trained to cope in an emergency.
"I know one of the pilots in the aircraft was one of the senior club instructors, very experienced, and of course part of the training is to cope with these emergencies," he said.
He said he was unsure which pilot was flying the plane at the time and would not comment on the experience of one of the men.
Mr Couper said the plane "looks to be in a bad way and it's amazing they both survived".
Rescuing the men was a team effort Mr Wilson said.
"The success of this rescue was a result of the combined efforts of aircraft and crew from the Helicopter Line, Mount Cook, Air Safaris and particularly the Westpac Rescue Helicopter from Christchurch".
The Civil Aviation Authority is investigating the cause of the crash.
Authority spokesman Bill Sommer said the two men will be spoken to and if the cause of the accident is learned from them, the authority may not need to travel to the crash site.
- NZPA, EDWARD GAY
Here's hoping for a speedy recovery for both Nicholas and Richard.
Richard is my regular instructor at NSAC, hence my interest in the story.
