Police name dead microlight pilot

Police have named the pilot of the microlight which crashed in dense bush in Abel Tasman National Park yesterday.

He was 44-year-old Alex Charles from Motueka.

Mr Charles and a Dutch tourist took off in the microlight from Motueka yesterday afternoon on a sight-seeing tour over Takaka but did not return.

Aerial searchers spotted a wing in the bush of the park yesterday and searchers began combing the park last night.

Their search resumed this morning and the pair's bodies were found shortly after 8.30am.

Police said the bodies were in the wreckage of the microlight which was stuck in the top of tall trees, making their recovery difficult.

A Rescue Co-ordination Centre spokeswoman said the crash wreckage was about 50m from the previously located wing.

Police were trying to leave the debris from the crash as undisturbed as possible so Civil Aviation Authority officers could conduct a proper crash investigation.

Earlier two helicopters and five more ground crews joined two crews already searching in the park.

A partial aerial search with infra-red equipment last night - before it had to be called off due to high winds - found "two areas of interest".

The crash is the latest in a string of fatal microlight accidents.

In May last year two men died in Wairoa after they tried to go on a flight in the middle of the night.

Two months earlier a Christchurch man was killed in a microlight crash in Southland.

Three other non-fatal crashes were reported last year in which pilots received moderate to minor injuries.

- NZPA