The Bay's hang glider and paraglider fraternity was shattered by the death which happened in perfect flying conditions.
"It was devastating," Shaw said. "He was a very nice kid - it was so tragic."
Shaw described Tingey as experienced, but not overly experienced. "I would class him as a safe pilot."
Tingey and Wotton told the Bay of Plenty Times last year that it did not make sense to buy a house in Auckland and they bought their first home in Tauranga instead.
Tingey, a surveyor, found a job in Tauranga soon after the couple won their prize and he was joined by his partner who saw out her teaching year at Mt Eden. The $100,000 was used as a deposit to buy a house in Brookfield for $500,000.
Wotton said after winning the prize they looked in Auckland for a house and then thought, ''what's the point, it's so expensive to just buy something very small, we'd need to do something with it.''
"My partner's family is from down here (Tauranga) and we thought, why not, there's nothing tying us except our jobs. I love it down here. The traffic is a bit less, we have family closer which is always nice as well, and things are a bit cheaper."
After paying tax, they netted $160,000 from the profit on the Henderson house and their prizemoney.
"That's a huge amount of money, there's no way we would have saved that without going on the show," Wotton said.
