By ANGELA GREGORY and QUENTIN CLARKSON
KAITAIA - A farmer says a small plane was flying unusually low before it made a sudden turn and crashed into a steep gully near Kaitaia yesterday, killing the pilot.
The Victa Airtourer went down 6km northeast of the town just after 9 am.
The pilot has
not been named, but police said he was the sole occupant.
Farmer Dagmar Gleave said she saw the "noisy little plane" through her kitchen window just after it left the airport.
"It was heading east and flying very low. I thought it must be taking aerial photographs. Then it suddenly made a turn to the north."
She said she briefly turned away to finish lighting a fire. When she looked outside again, the plane had gone.
"All I could see was black smoke coming up from a very steep gully. I thought some stupid person had lit a fire. I didn't know it was the plane."
Police said the plane belonged to the Kaitaia Aero Club.
The badly burned body was removed for an autopsy to be held in Auckland today. Air accident investigators travelled to Kaitaia yesterday.
A Waikato pilot killed in a crash in Papua New Guinea on Saturday has been named. He was Hayden Brian Gibbs, aged 30.
He and three passengers died when the plane crashed and burned shortly after taking off from a remote village.
Mr Gibbs was flying for North Coast Aviation when the crash happened at Bapi in the mountainous Morobe province, says his administration manager, Brad Potts.
The others in the Britten Norman Islander aircraft were local villagers.
Nigel Allardyce, from the New Zealand High Commission, said he understood the plane had failed to clear trees at the end of the airstrip.
Hamilton-based Super Air spokesman Mike Keen said Mr Gibbs had worked for the Waikato Aero Club as an instructor six months ago. He also worked part-time with VIP Air in Cambridge.
