The crash scene on April 28, 2019 after the death of eight people, all but one from a Hawke's Bay family. Photo / Rotorua Daily Post
The crash scene on April 28, 2019 after the death of eight people, all but one from a Hawke's Bay family. Photo / Rotorua Daily Post
Dashcam images from in one of New Zealand's worst crashes are expected to uncloak the mystery of the deaths of eight, including a Hawke's Bay couple and five of their children.
The crash happened on State Highway 1 northwest of Taupo on April 28 last year, and resulted in thedeaths of parents David Poutawa,42, and Margaret Luke, 35, and children Trinity, 13, Chanley, 11, Jahnero, 10, Akacia, 8, and Khyus, 7.
Also killed was the driver of the only other vehicle, Scouts New Zealand manager Jenny Rogers, of Wellington.
The sixth Poutawa whānau sibling David, was the sole survivor, with serious injuries but was still able to attend the tangi and burial at Moteo, west of Napier, six days later, along with seventh child Legacy, who at the time was aged 12 and at home with grandmother Sherilyn Poutawa in Tokoroa, where the family had moved from Napier.
It is thought to have been the worst single-incident loss of life in a nuclear family of mum, dad and children in New Zealand in at least a century, if not ever.
There have been only two road crashes in New Zealand with greater loss of life, the Brynderwyn Hills bus crash south of Whangārei which killed 15 people in February 1963, and a tourist minibus and timber-truck horror which killed nine near Morrinsville in May 2005.
Memorial crosses at the crash scene. Photo / Doug Laing
The existence of the dashcam vision from last year's crash has been revealed publicly for the first time as the first anniversary passes, with an inquiry complete and a Coroner's findings awaited.
Police Taupō area road policing manager Troy Fane told Hawke's Bay Today no comment on the cause could be made pending the Coroner's report.
"I can say that one vehicle was fitted with a dashcam that recorded the events leading to the crash itself," he said. "This footage along with the evidence located and the Serious Crash Unit investigation has painted a clear picture of what transpired on the day."
A spokesperson for Coronial Services said there has been no decision yet on whether a formal inquest will be held, or when the Coroner's findings will be released.
The family had been at a Saturday family function in Hawke's Bay and was travelling back to Tokoroa when the crash happened about 10.30 the next morning as their vehicle rounded a drifting, slightly-rising left-hand bend just north of the State Highway 1 intersection with Ōhakuri Rd.
The vehicle appeared to have crossed the road suddenly and collided with an oncoming vehicle on the opposite side of the highway.
The road was damp from intermittent light morning rain following recent dry weather in the area, in which five members of another family were killed when a car hit a tree on a nearby rural road less than four weeks earlier.
Communities at three Tokoroa schools attended by the children united in the grief of the following days, with hundreds turning out in the town with haka, waiata and tears as the fleet of hearses and other vehicles passed through at night en route from Waikato Hospital to Hawke's Bay.
Soon afterwards, the procession stopped at the crash site and during the night arrived at Timikara Marae, near where all of the children had previously gone to school at Puketapu. They were buried in separate caskets in a single grave in the urupa adjacent to the marae the following Saturday.
Just two days after the tragedy, with family at her side, Sherilyn Poutawa, told of how she was at home in Tokoroa with Legacy when she heard of the crash that killed her eldest son.
"This tragedy, of losing our loved ones is devastating – shock," she said. "No words can fully describe the agony, the anguish that our whānau are experiencing at this time."
On-line appeals to support surviving David ("D.J.") and Legacy and other whānau raised more than $50,000, and seven crosses, often accompanied and adorned by flowers, stand at the scene, beside an arrowed sign denoting the bend but barely visible to the passing traffic.
