Glider pilot may have flown into power line

The glider's occupant was killed near the Bombay Hills south of Auckland. File photo / Amos Chapple

A glider pilot killed in an accident south of Auckland yesterday may have hit power lines before his glider slid down a gully, hit a fence and flipped upside down, witnesses say.

The Civil Aviation Authority is investigating the accident which killed the sole occupant of the glider, a man who police said was aged between 50 and 60.

Craig Andrews, who is building a home on Nikau Rd in the Bombay Hills south of Auckland, was one of the two men first on the scene immediately after the accident at 4pm yesterday.

Mr Andrews said he was alerted to the crash - which occurred only 100m from him - when he heard a "bang".

Mr Andrews said he and farmer Blair George, who had been watching the glider circling before it crashed, rushed to the wreck to help but there was nothing they could do.

"[Blair] was watching it circling and he thought it was going to land on his air strip," Mr Andrews said.

"And then he saw it come over my direction and then he came and got me. He thought it had landed in the paddock where I'm working but it was just across the road," he said.

"He thought it was trying to land [but] maybe the wind didn't allow him to land.

"He was sort of coming down but then he ended up going a little bit past where I was working.

"It looked like he hit power wires too, we think, because a bit of the wreck was by the power wire and it slid down the gully and hit a fence and flipped upside down.

"We tipped it back up but we didn't try to take him out. I think he would have died on impact."

Mr Andrews said the man had a gash to the side of his head.

Karen Conaglen was shocked to hear the accident occurred on her lifestyle block at Pokeno.

She said she wasn't living at the home, which was for sale, and did not see the crash, but noted the area was always popular for gliders.

"There's always lots of gliders and planes flying around."

Another nearby resident said he drove past the accident and saw the wreck soon after the crash.

"It's landed on the fence fairly hard and the tail's broken off round about three-quarters of the way back on the fuselage.

"The cockpit looked as if it was fairly intact."

A spokesman at Auckland Gliding Club in Drury declined to comment last night, saying police had advised him not to do so while the CAA investigation was carried out.