Engine stopped, so did time

It was the slowest 10 seconds of David Morgan's life.

The 48-year-old firefighter from Exeter in Devon, England, was one of the six injured in Thursday's air crash in Motueka.

Yesterday he told how he saw pilot Karl Cameron wrestling with the controls after Skydive Nelson's Cessna 185 stalled shortly after take-off from Motueka airfield.

Mr Cameron was in a critical but stable condition in Nelson Hospital's intensive care unit yesterday.

Tandem jumpmaster Dave Evans was in a serious condition, in Wellington Hospital, after being transferred from Nelson.

Video operator Simon Tanner was in a comfortable condition in Nelson Hospital.

Tandem jumpmaster Steve Callaghan was also injured, but was discharged from Nelson Hospital late Thursday.

A female passenger, believed to be a Swedish tourist, has not yet been named. She was also in a comfortable condition, but was to be transferred to Auckland Hospital yesterday for further specialist care, Nelson Hospital said.

Air accident inspector Ian McClelland said the six were lucky to have survived.

Mr Morgan arrived in Nelson mid-week.

Moments after takeoff, things suddenly went seriously wrong. "I saw everything in slow motion," he said. "I could see he [Mr Cameron] was struggling, then we started going down."

Mr Morgan was aware the pilot had managed to gain some control of the plane, but it pitched forward and nose-dived into the ground. He recalled hearing one of the Skydive Nelson team members shout, "brace yourselves, we're going down".

Mr Morgan reckoned they hit the ground about 10 seconds later, and his first instinct was that the plane was going to explode. He recalled someone saying they had to get clear of the plane.

"I managed to crawl away about five metres but my leg was so deformed."

Mr Morgan has attended air accidents in his 21-year career in the fire service, and said it was strange to be involved in one. He survived a serious hang-gliding accident in Devon several years ago, when he fell 400m after a strong thermal turned his glider upside down.

Mr Morgan has a broken and dislocated left ankle and serious bruising. "My plan was to do more adrenalin-seeking activities, but I may have to put that on hold."

He had planned to travel around the South Island to be back in England by December 10.

Skydive Nelson owner-operator Stuart Bean said the business would carry on. He said he had visited his friends and colleagues in hospital last night and they were "doing as well as can be expected".

Mr Bean said he was devastated by the accident.

Mr McClelland, of the Transport Accident Investigation Commission, said he was keeping an open mind as to whether engine failure caused the crash.

The first part of the investigation was to observe the condition of the aircraft and account for everything, he said.

"Engine failure may or may not be a cause. You have to keep an open mind," he said. "My general observation is the people were very lucky to have got away."

The aircraft struck the top of a belt of trees and travelled 25m after it hit the ground.

Mr McClelland would look at moving the wreckage to a secure area to look at more details, and start interviewing witnesses.

He estimated that he would be in the Motueka area for about three days. The investigation could take six months or more, he said.

Mr Cameron is a self-employed commercial pilot who had been contracted to work for the company for the past three months.

Mr Tanner has worked for the company for almost three years, Mr Evans about six years, and Mr Callaghan for just a short time.

Mr Bean said he had received messages of support and condolence from colleagues in the skydiving industry around the country, and he had every intention of continuing his skydiving business.

"Obviously we've got a lot of work to do, to work through the investigation, and minimise risk in the future.

"It's our intention to get through this and carry on," he said.

Only the pilot was wearing a seatbelt in the plane crash. Mr Bean said the passengers were strapped together in preparation for the tandem skydive, and did not wear seatbelts.

This was the case in all skydive planes, he said, which were exempt from the seatbelt requirement.

Flight instructor Andy Smith of Nelson Aviation College said the Motueka airstrip was of a good standard.

"It used to be certified under the Civil Aviation Authority, and it's still kept up to those standards. It's a good surface and is kept mown."

There were few suitable open, flat places to land around the airstrip if a pilot was forced to land, which was something a pilot had to be aware of. But many airstrips were in a similar situation, he said.

The closer the plane was to the ground, the fewer options the pilot had to glide to safety.

Latitude Nelson chief executive Paul Davis said Skydive Nelson was known as a high-quality operator.

"It's a well-known company, particularly among the youth travellers and backpackers, even though it does have competitors in other parts of the country."

Mr Davis said Skydive Nelson had a very sound track record, but until the investigation was complete, no one could presume to know what had happened.

He said adventure tourism activities always carried an element of risk, and the challenge was to eliminate unnecessary risk.

The Latitude Nelson office alerted Tourism New Zealand of yesterday's accident so it could inform other offices around the world. "Issues like this do have an impact on us and the rest of New Zealand.

"It now needs to be talked about openly so people have an assurance that all risks were eliminated," Mr Davis said.

The Cessna 185 was one of the most popular small aircraft in New Zealand, the Civil Aviation Authority said.

Authority spokesman Bill Sommer said that since 1970 when records began, the Cessna 185 aircraft type had been involved in 100 accidents and minor incidents (including incidents during taxiing) around New Zealand.

The plane was popularly used as an aerial top-dresser. "They're really tough aircraft, which is why they're so sought after, and they are reliable.

"Yesterday was just one of those days," Mr Sommer said.

Two pilots and 12 passengers have been killed in Cessna 185 accidents since 1970, and in the last five years there had been once accident a year involving the aircraft, he said.

Three resulted from inappropriate pilot action and two were from mechanical failures.

CAA rules for commercial parachute operations require commercial certification for the aircraft and different rules for the parachute operation, Mr Sommer said.

The authority wrote the rules and the Parachute Federation police them. The system worked well with good cooperation between both.

The results of an investigation by the commission into Thursday's accident would be forwarded to the authority, Mr Sommer said.

- NZPA