Mountaineers hauled and slid a damaged plane down the Franz Josef Glacier after it crashed in October 1943. Photo / Herald file
Murray Thomas and Norman Marshall were enjoying an autumn flight over the spectacular Franz Josef Glacier when a sudden down draught threw their flimsy biplane amongst the ice.
The Tiger Moth, travelling at just 65km/h, overturned and crashed into the jumbled, icy surface of the glacier and jolted into a 10m-deep crevasse in April 1950.
Having survived their afternoon plunge, Thomas, the pilot, and Marshall, a Ngaruawahia sheep farmer, shivered the night away under the upturned wreckage of the Greymouth Aero Club plane. They were met by rescuers at about midday on the day after their crash.
Theirs was one of two sightseeing plane crashes on the glacier within seven years. Both were within several hundred metres downstream of the junction with the tributary Almer Glacier.
In October 1943, pilot Orville Darcy Openshaw had been taking four Women's Auxiliary Air Force members on a scenic flight over the glacier. The plane was a de Havilland Fox Moth previously owned by the Prince of Wales before he was crowned King Edward VIII.
New Zealand's glaciers and snowfields have been the sites of numerous plane crashes, including many fatalities.
Pilot Murray Thomas (left) and passenger Norman Marshall and the wrecked plane after the April 1950 crash on the Franz Josef Glacier. Photo / West Coast NZ History Collection
The wrecked Tiger Moth plane was left wedged in a 10m-deep crevasse after it crashed into the Franz Josef Glacier in April 1950. Photo / Herald file
In October 1993, nine people were killed when a Nomad plane crashed into a crevassed part of Franz Josef Glacier. And in November 2015, pilot Mitch Gameren and six tourists were killed when their helicopter crashed into a crevasse on the Fox Glacier.
After Thomas and Marshall's lucky 1950 escape from the claws of a crevasse, the pilot described the crash and rescue in detail.
Thomas said a down draught sucked the plane down amongst ice pinnacles where it hit one, bounced onto another then became loosely wedged.
"I had a premonition that it was coming. We were flying at about 4500 ft [1372m], when we were caught in a down draught, which struck three times and overturned the plane. At the point of contact, we were travelling at less than stalling speed, about 40 miles an hour.
"Immediately on coming to rest I switched off my ignition and petrol. The glacier was rugged where we landed and there were three crevasses about 30 ft deep. We came to rest on the lower one, with only the tail of the plane visible.
"We spent Sunday night in the plane, the seats being our roof. It was an unenviable experience and we spent most of the night in prayer. In this we were not alone, as we were later informed that many, including the sisters of the Convent of Mercy, were praying for our safety, and to this must be attributed our really miraculous escape.
"We heard and saw every plane that took part in the search, but it was impossible to sight us or the wrecked aircraft, as it was painted silver, and this was not visible on a background of ice. Even if the plane had been painted black it would still not have been visible, so treacherous was the nature of the area in which we came down.
Thomas was unsure if the search party would reach them.
"We had been calling and shouting for several hours, but the only response was the echo of our voices.
"About noon yesterday we gave what we thought would be one last yell, and to our surprise we were answered by two voices within 50 yards of us, although they could not see us."
Two guides from the Franz Josef Glacier Hotel had found them and began leading them down the glacier. At Defiance Hut, they met a party of five under chief guide Harry Ayres, who had brought "food and stimulants".
They reached the foot of the glacier at nightfall.
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Like pilot Murray Thomas' plane, Orville Openshaw's was in October 1943 hit by a sudden down draught. He had to make a forced landing.
The wings on one side of the biplane were crumpled and the engine had broken free of the fuselage. The passengers were uninjured. The pilot's nose suffered a slight abrasion when he was thrown forward as the plane hit the glacier.
Openshaw and his four passengers, none of whom was kitted out for alpine travel, picked their way, led by the pilot, through a field of crevasses that were more than 15m deep. They managed to scramble onto the rocky mountainside above the glacier where they set fire to tussocks, but their smoke signals were not noticed by an aerial search.
They had left the airfield at the Franz township, then called Waiho, at 9.30am for a 15-minute flight. The Hokitika office of the plane's owner, Air Travel NZ Ltd, was notified at 10am that it hadn't returned.
The company's principal, pilot J. C. Mercer, turned back from a Nelson-Wellington flight, flew south and began searching from the air. He sighted the missing bi-plane, with the wings crumpled on one side, at 2.45pm.
A second search flight spotted the five missing people on a large rock, standing and waving their coats.
Rescuers began the long walk in. The first group reached Openshaw and his passengers at 9pm.
"... owing to the late hour it was considered prudent to spend the night on the mountain in preference to making a somewhat difficult detour to the Defiance Hut," a Herald correspondent wrote.
Openshaw and the four women, N. J. Ward, Molly Wilson, Margaret Cornwall and Clare McQuitty, were very thirsty when found and were given hot milk from thermos flasks.
"Some slept for a short time, but the night was passed principally with singing and joking. They kept huddled close together and although it was fairly cold at such a height there was no great discomfort."
At 4.45am they began the journey to the township, which took nine hours.
At first it was thought salvaging the damaged plane would not be possible. However, a team of mountaineers managed to haul and slide it down the glacier in December 1943.
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