Report on Erceg search finds big flaws

The family of liquor baron Michael Erceg say improvements to the search and rescue system that failed to find his crashed helicopter would be more welcome than any apology.

The multimillionaire and his Dutch passenger, Guus Klatte, died when Mr Erceg's helicopter crashed near Raglan on November 4 last year.

The official search was called off on November 10, and a private search funded by the Erceg family took until November 19 to find the wreckage.

At the time, the family complained that the official search had been abandoned too soon.

An independent report on the search and rescue operation, released yesterday, says poor communication, inadequate consultation and ineffective searching handicapped the effort.

Mr Erceg's brother Ivan said the family embraced the report and regarded it as an important first step.

"The next part is to bring about the changes necessary to bring some form of compliance and thereby create a better organisation that will be better prepared and better equipped and more efficient at achieving their objectives."

The report's 41 recommendations call for major changes to search and rescue procedures, and it says it was apparent there was tension between Government and non-Government search and rescue agencies.

Maritime New Zealand's Rescue Co-ordination Centre had little capacity to manage the quantity of information it received about where the downed aircraft might be, could have better analysed that information, and should have involved the on-scene co-ordinators more in decision-making, the report said.

"What did occur, has," Ivan Erceg said. "We're hopeful these things can be remedied.

"We would like to assist in bringing change. If this report is the vehicle for it - and we hope it is - then that's better than any apology.

"We believe that the money that is available at this point and time for search and rescue is not being used to its fullest capability."

The official aerial search cost around $815,000, and the Ercegs' private search is estimated to have cost $1.5 million.

The report, written by Paul Fitzharris, a retired assistant commissioner of police, says the rescue co-ordination centre should have sought expert medical opinion before calling off a search.

"Whilst the family were consulted by telephone at a senior level within Maritime NZ, I accept their point regarding this and feel they should have been brought into the decision more regarding search suspension," Mr Fitzharris writes.

The report also emphasised the extremely difficult terrain in which the helicopter crashed.

Searchers flew over the area several times and failed to spot the aircraft, which had come to rest in a patch of bush 13m wide and 120m long.

"The helicopter was completely hidden within it," says the report.

"If it had crashed a metre either side it was likely to be readily seen in pasture."

Maritime NZ communications adviser Steve Corbett said the report did not say the search failed because of a lack of adherence to procedures or that searchers could have done anything different.

"There are things in the report we will take on board, there are things ... that we have already identified and are already before Government.

"We have to accept what the report says and our feedback says that we could have done better. That is certainly one of the bigger learning points of the report."

Mr Corbett said the report had confirmed the crash site was "impossibly cruel and difficult" to find but also highlighted that the search for that site could have been better managed.

The report clears commercial helicopter pilot John Funnell - who was appointed an on-scene co-ordinator by the Rescue Centre - of having had any conflict of interest because he owned helicopter companies.

"I do not accept that he acted improperly in this matter," Mr Fitzharris writes.