By PAUL YANDALL
Two New Zealanders were among a group of four people killed when their single-engine plane crashed in Canberra.
The pilot and three passengers of the privately owned Beechcraft 23 Musketeer died when the plane plunged into a paddock and caught fire about 500m from Canberra Airport at 12.20 pm on Sunday.
Australian police spokesman Sergeant Greg Amos said the names of the New Zealanders had been given to police, but dental records and DNA tests would have to be used for a positive identification because the bodies were badly burned.
The New Zealanders are believed to be a young woman and man, with families in Wellington.
The group were on a sight-seeing trip when the light aircraft plunged to the ground shortly after takeoff.
The crash was one of three light plane crashes in Australia at the weekend which killed nine people.
A Brisbane television presenter, Tony Gordon, aged 45, died when the Pitts Special plane in which he was performing aerobatics crashed into a field south of Brisbane on Sunday.
On Friday, four local police died in the West Australian mining town of Newman when their Cessna 310 crashed on approach to the local airport.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau said investigations had begun into each incident.
New Zealand police spokesman Jon Neilson said police here began tracking down the families of the two Canberra crash victims yesterday.
Unconfirmed reports said the plane was being flown by its male owner - a Canberra resident who had bought it only recently - who was accompanied by his partner, his partner's New Zealand sister and her boyfriend.
Witnesses said the plane appeared to have engine problems almost as soon as it took off on a flight to the southern New South Wales town of Tumut.
It burst into flames on impact and started a grass fire that burned out about 1ha.
DNA tests for plane crash bodies
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