Doomed pilots linked by love of flying

Greg Nash and Peter Beatty shared a passion for flying, and died doing a job they loved.

Last night the families of the two men, both from Pukekohe, recalled how they had formed a bond through work and a mutual love of sport.

The pair had been close friends for the past 17 years.

Mr Nash, 56, a pilot for Super Air, and Mr Beatty, 49, were killed on Tuesday when their Fletcher turbo-prop topdressing plane crashed into dense bush in the Pukenui Forest, about 9km from Whangarei Airport.

They were flying from Kaikohe to Whangarei and were three to five minutes from their destination.

For the Nash family, the tragedy follows the deaths of two of Mr Nash's sons in separate incidents in the past seven years.

Mr Nash himself had already triumphed over cancer, which had temporarily ended his flying days.

Born in Te Kopuru and raised in Tangiteroria, both in Northland, Mr Nash worked on farms before his love of flying lured him away.

He was heavily involved in the Dargaville Aero Club, where he obtained a private pilot's licence.

The Nash family said last night in a statement: "Greg accepted everyone as family but to all he was more than that. He was a great friend."

As with Mr Nash, Mr Beatty was respected by his peers for his flying prowess and experience.

He was born and raised in Tangiteroria and was based for many years in Dargaville.

Mr Beatty had been addicted to flying since the age of 19, and his work took him to Sudan and Malaysia.

The men's bodies were recovered from the forest about 4pm yesterday.

Fourteen police search and rescue members and a Westpac rescue helicopter were involved in the recovery, which took all day because of the difficult terrain.

The position of the plane - on its nose with its tail in the air - also complicated matters. Police guarded it overnight and searchers hope to remove it today.

Questions were raised over the time it took to react when the aircraft failed to turn up at Whangarei, but airport manager Mike Chubb said the situation wasn't out of the ordinary.

"We didn't think anything of it when he didn't show up because, with the nature of topdressing pilots and planes, we didn't think it was anything unusual," he said.

It was not until 10.30pm on Tuesday, when relatives of one of the men came to see him, that Mr Chubb realised something was wrong.

The wreckage was spotted on Wednesday during an aerial search.

The bodies of Mr Nash and Mr Beatty will be returned to their families after autopsies.

- additional reporting NZPA