Queensland crash claims Auckland family

2.00pm

UPDATE - The New Zealand family killed in a plane crash at the Australian resort of Hamilton Island were from Hillsborough in Auckland.

Kevin and Joanne Bowles and their two children Sophie, aged nine, and Michael, aged six, died with an American and Australian pilot when the Piper Cherokee smashed into a hill near Great Barrier Reef Airport last night.

The family was on a week-long holiday, which started at the beginning of the school holiday's on Monday.

A relative, Edith Stacey, said the Bowles family had worked in Papua New Guinea for some years operating a resort.

"They truly were a very family-oriented couple, who delighted in their children. The fact that they were lost together, on holiday, in Club Med, in the Great Barrier, is indicative of the priority they put on having good times with family and children," Ms Stacey told TVNZ.

The American passenger is believed to have been on his honeymoon.

The Brisbane Courier Mail reported today the American and his wife may have taken a last minute decision to separate for the flight so the Bowles family could travel together. They were all guests at Club Med Lindeman.

His wife and another New Zealand family are believed to have been on a second aircraft which took off shortly after the doomed plane.

The newlyweds had told other guests they had married only a week ago in the Whitsundays.

Queensland police spokesman Julie Elliot said relatives of the New Zealand family had been told, including the dead woman's mother, who was holidaying in Melbourne.

She said dental records could be requested from New Zealand to help in the formal identification but police might also use DNA.

She said the fire when the plane crashed was intense and virtually destroyed the bulk of the plane and the bodies, making a formal identification very hard.

"It is a real tragedy in anyone's book."

She said police believed the New Zealand family consisted only of the mother and father and two children on the aircraft.

Specialist disaster identification police were due to arrive on the island today to begin the gruesome process of identification, which could take days.

Hamilton Island public relations spokeswoman Susan Boyd said the small island community was shocked and saddened by the tragedy.

"Nothing like this has ever happened before."

Counselling had been offered to people on the island.

She said the airport and charter flights were all operating as usual.

Hamilton Island and the nearby Whitsunday group of islands are popular holiday spots for New Zealand holidaymakers.

The crash is the latest in a series of air incidents at the island.

In December 1985 a man was killed when a helicopter crashed at a landing pontoon in Black Reef, about 50km northeast of Hamilton Island.

In January 1992 six passengers had a close call when a single-engine Cessna 210 plane crashed into the water off the island as it was approaching its landing strip.

- Herald staff, NZPA