Crash investigators and police today started interviewing witnesses to a fatal plane crash in the Bay of Plenty on Saturday.
Robert Dunlop, 73, of Tauranga, was flying his home-built plane when it nose-dived into the sea off Matakana Island, killing himself and his 18-year-old grandson, Alan Dunlop, of Morrinsville.
Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) spokesman Bill Sommer told NZPA today engineers would examine the plane wreck today after it was pulled from the seabed yesterday.
CAA investigators and police would join forces to interview witnesses.
It was too early to speculate what had caused the crash.
Boaties who saw the crash off Matakana Island just before 11am rushed to the crash site and retrieved the bodies from the wreckage.
Mr Dunlop spent nearly 20 years building the Zenair Zenith kitset he had ordered from the United States.
Owners had to register with the CAA before construction began and keep a log and take photos of the project.
The CAA inspected all finished home-built planes before authorising them to begin test schedules lasting up to 40 hours over restricted areas.
About 300 home-built planes were currently flying or under construction in New Zealand.
Three light aircraft have crashed in New Zealand in the past fortnight, killing seven people.
Two men died instantly on Christmas Day when their microlight crashed into a paddock on the Hauraki Plains; and a father and two of his sons died on December 17 when his Piper Navajo crashed near Feilding.
- NZPA
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