Sonar equipment searching sea floor for plane wreckage

4.30pm

Sonar equipment is being used to search for a plane that crashed into the sea off the Kapiti Coast north of Wellington on Friday night.

Senior Sergeant Mike Coleman, of Paraparaumu police, said today two Coastguard boats from Kapiti and Waikanae were doing grid searches using the equipment to look for wreckage on the sea floor.

A police dive squad was on stand-by to investigate any objects found and a salvage vessel was on its way to the area from the South Island.

Aerial and foot searches today found no sign of pilot Barry Cowley, 57, of Kaiapoi near Christchurch and his colleague Paul Miller, 50, of Auckland. Both are believed dead.

Mr Coleman said the small pieces of wreckage found, including the plane's nose cone which was recovered at sea yesterday, indicated the impact of the crash was intense. Also terrible weather conditions and high seas on Friday meant had either man survived the crash they would have drowned.

The search which resumed at 8am today used a fixed wing aircraft, the boats, about 20 Coastguard personnel and 10 police. About 20 volunteers driving four-wheel-drive vehicles searched the shore. The police land search was called off yesterday after it became clear the plane went down in the sea.

A water-activated beacon on the plane has not been detected.

Mr Coleman said speculation about how the plane crashed was unhelpful.

Some media have reported that the crew may have intentionally flown out to sea to avoid crashing in a residential area. There were also suggestions the plane could have hit a tree or been hit by lightning.

Mr Coleman said the Transport Accident Investigation Commission would determine what happened. He believed the most likely chain of events was that the plane suffered either mechanical or control problems and turned back to land at Paraparaumu Airport, "but there's nothing to confirm that".

Emergency services were called on Friday night after Kapiti Coast residents heard a plane circling, then bangs, and later noticed the smell of aviation fuel.

The pilots were flying the Airfreight New Zealand Convair 580 from Christchurch to Palmerston North when it disappeared from Ohakea air control's radar about 9.30pm.

The Sunday Star-Times reported today that Mr Cowley's wife Jan had asked her husband if it was safe to fly in the appalling weather conditions.

"Jan said to him as he went out of the door, Are you sure the plane will be OK in this weather?'," her brother, Lex Wallace said.

"He turned back and laughed and said of course it will be all right'. She was very concerned about the weather."

Jan and their two children, Nicki, 29, who lives in Britain, and Nigel, 26, were resigned to the fact that Mr Cowley was dead.

"I don't think any of the family has come to grips with the reality that we're not going to see him again. The police say there's a slim chance they may have made it to Kapiti Island but I think they would have found them by now if that was the case," Jan's other brother, Andrew Wallace said.

"Barry was the nicest person, the nicest bloke you could meet. Life is so unjust," he said.

Mr Cowley's brother-in-law Bruce Sutherland lives near the crash site. "When it came to flying, you could not find a safer pilot," he told the newspaper.

"Barry was absolutely meticulous. He wasn't your average Kiwi bloke into racing, rugby and beer. For Barry, it was all about being up in the sky.

"He was a hell of a nice guy, a good family man. He absolutely lived for flying, that was his whole life."

Mr Sutherland could not believe it had happened so close to his own home. "I used to hear Barry flying over my house and I knew that was him at work." Mr Cowley had worked previously as a top-dressing pilot and had also flown in Fiji and the Marshall islands.

Mr Miller also loved flying -- as a young boy, he used to save his pocket money until he had a pound and would then sprint to the Hauraki Aero Club around the corner from his Thames home to beg pilots to take him flying. Friends were yesterday comforting his wife Frouk and their five children.

Friends said Mr Miller was not meant to be flying on Friday but was filling in for a friend. "But that's just fate," said long-time friend Moss Smith.

"The thing I will remember most about Paul was his seriousness about flying. He was fanatical about getting things right... a lot of us owe our lives to him with looking after us while flying."

Barry Gordon, who worked with Mr Miller for eight years on spraying missions with Auckland's Airwork Ltd said: "He loved flying. His aim in life was to fly big planes. It was his greatest love."

The pair's employer yesterday praised the pair's ability and experience and said they would not have flown if they felt conditions were unsafe.

"Our pilots know that ultimately if they don't feel safe then they don't go up," Freightways Group managing director Dean Bracewell said in a statement.

Mr Cowley was "one of Airfreight's most experienced and capable pilots (who) would have no hesitation in not flying if he was concerned about safety".

Airfreight New Zealand is a subsidiary of Fieldair Holdings, a business in the Freightways Group. It operates five Convair 580 planes used to connect overnight airfreight between the North Island and South Island.

Fieldair Holdings executive officer Bill Olsen is working with authorities in the crash area.

- NZPA