By MONIQUE DEVEREUX
Phil Timings has returned to England without his daughter's body. He has nothing to bury or cremate, just the memory of Hannah, his "very clever, adventurous girl, a girl who wanted to see the world".
He can only assume the 28-year-old died in a helicopter crash with Hamilton pilot Campbell Montgomerie on January 3, somewhere between Queenstown and Milford Sound.
Hannah, a fashion furniture designer who worked for Viscount Linley, met farm station owner Montgomerie before Christmas through mutual friends and, Timings says, "just hit it off".
They are now assumed to lie together in wreckage swallowed up by dense flora high in the Fiordland National Park.
Exactly where, and why they crashed, will play on the 56-year-old father's mind forever. The Montgomerie family will probably be asking the same questions.
Despite an extensive air and ground search lasting more than a week, the unforgiving nature of the landscape may mean neither family will find the answers.
On his arrival from England, Timings was taken on a flyover to give him an idea of what the search entailed. The Montgomerie family, who had previously walked the Milford Track and knew the make-up of the land, said even they were bewildered by the extent of the search.
But Timings was shocked.
"It was nothing like I could have imagined - to me it looked like the Amazon put on top of the Himalayas."
Describing the vast and remote area to his family waiting anxiously in England was difficult. "There is nothing like it in Europe that I know of."
The official search run by the National Rescue Co-ordination Centre was scaled down a week ago. Before then, helicopters and light aircraft had clocked up more than 204 flying hours. Their operators, and those co-ordinating them, collectively worked for more than 2300 hours.
The hunt for answers has not been abandoned but searchers will now act only if fresh information comes in.
The last major act of the operation was a ground search of the region where Montgomerie - a pilot for four years, with 300 hours' flying time in the type of helicopter he was piloting - said he was when he last made radio contact.
That search finally began on Tuesday - it had been delayed by bad weather - but also found nothing.
For now, the Hughes 369HS helicopter in which Montgomerie and Timings were travelling will be added to the list of seven unaccounted-for aircraft that have disappeared in the same region and never been recovered.
Calling off a search for missing aircraft or boats is a decision that is not taken lightly by the National Rescue Coordination Centre.
Co-ordinator Ray Parker says the process is formalised. But he is blunt about it. "One of the things that needs to be appreciated is that search and rescue is all about saving lives. If there are no lives to save then we're not in a search and rescue scenario."
Even though Montgomerie radioed the Milford air control tower to say he was lost in cloud on the way to Milford Sound, Parker says a crash is not the first assumption.
"You just can't assume that. Lots of people survive absolutely horrendous and incredible scenarios."
But sometimes, especially in areas like the glacial, mountainous Fiordland National Park, there comes a time when the factors pointing to the chance of survival are non-existent.
Searchers last week battled not only cloud and rain to get into the air but flooding and snow. "We had people out there trying to assist us, except the conditions were so horrendous and hazardous they couldn't put people on the ground," said Parker.
"Those people said, in their opinion, chance of survival would be of a low percentage.
"So after taking all of those things into account we said we don't believe, in the absence of any fresh information relating to where the aircraft might be or the condition of missing persons, that further searching is likely to produce a positive outcome."
An emergency beacon from the helicopter was not activated. Parker says this is not unusual but could indicate there had been an impact or a fire."
Information about the helicopter's intended route was also missing - private operators are not required to file flight plans in such situations.
"Really, we had bugger-all information. We know they left the hut. We know they spoke on the radio. That's it.
"So we continually ask ourselves questions. What was the situation with the weather? What about radio range? Could they be in a river bed or somewhere that the beacon's range is isolated?
"But then you've got to think, maybe it wasn't a controlled descent and landing. Did they hit the tree tops and go through some 80ft [24m] to the ground, and then get camouflaged by the dense canopy of the Fiordland bush?"
Eventually, Parker said, it was decided that increased air searching probably would not find the wreckage.
For the Timings and Montgomerie families, and the many others in the same situation before them, it was difficult to accept.
They had arrived at Te Anau, the base for the search operation, hoping there would be something - if not a happy reunion, at least closure.
"I thought, coming over here, I was going to bring her home," said Timings. "But now I'm going home without her."
Parker, who is based in Wellington, says finding nothing is frustrating for all involved. But for him it does not get personal.
"Yes, it's frustrating and sad and all of that, but you don't become attached to the missing people."
Others do. Assistant search and rescue co-ordinator in the Tasman police district, Sherp Tucker, says it can get very personal for those on the ground.
He was not involved in the Fiordland search but the rugged country on his back doorstep keeps his team busy enough every year.
For Tucker, no search is ever completely finished unless there is a person or a body - or part of a body - discovered.
That means that although no one is actively scouring the landscape for the missing people or their aircraft, information is still put out to the public using the area.
If any new information comes in, no matter how long after the original search, a crew will take a look.
Tucker can cite one case where searchers went back to an area 11 times based on snippets of information and still did not find who they were looking for.
"We might not be doing the mammoth search efforts that we have done at the start but every case is still open until there is some kind of result."
Making the call to scale back the search to what is known as the "limited continuous search mode" is not easy.
"It's possibly one of the hardest decisions you actually get in the search arena, to take everybody out of the field. It's an extremely big decision."
Tucker says relatives of missing people are understandably disappointed that their loved ones have not been found. But they usually accept that the team has done everything possible.
Timings showed that understanding this week. "I don't know what more can be done short of cutting every tree down. It's just the way it is," he said after the search was called off.
It is a harsh reality, says Tucker, but a search is only suspended with good reason.
Most searches on this scale do yield a result, although there is not always a happy ending.
Last Saturday, Chris Barns and Kim Austin went missing while flying between Taupo and Te Puke. Barns' wife Jill sparked a search and rescue operation when the call she was expecting once the men arrived did not come.
The search for Barns' little Robinson R22 lasted until Monday morning, but it was a local farmer - not the numerous search aircraft - who found the wreckage near Aratiatia.
As the search began there was a feeling of deja vu at the national control centre. Parker felt a little more optimistic about the survival possibilities for Barns and Austin.
"But there is no telling. We didn't find it anyway. It was found by a farmer. So [in the search] down south we could just as well have had a possum hunter, you know, he could have found it an hour after it happened.
"It's just that we didn't seem to have a possum hunter in the right spot.
"When the Taupo search started I thought, 'Here we go, another week', except survivability conditions in Taupo are probably a bit more friendly than down in Fiordland."
The Barns and Austin families laid their relatives to rest this week, but for the Timings and Montgomerie families the wait will go on.
Helicopter and crew still missing without trace
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