According to media reports at the time, a swastika was tagged on the plane. The Royal NZ Air Force apologised to the Australians for it.
Detective Sergeant Steve Salton said DNA samples from the tagging and a burglary in November 2008 remained on the police databank.
When a man was arrested after a domestic incident on Christmas Day last year, Crown scientists were able to link him to the earlier crimes.
The Chief of Air Staff, Air Vice-Marshall Peter Stockwell, said he was grateful to the police for the arrest.
The damage to the plane had been serious.
The man was arrested yesterday morning and will be charged with burglary and intentional damage, which carry a penalty of 10 years and seven years respectively.
In 2010, in a similar case, a 21-year-old woman was sentenced to 350 hours' community work six years after she robbed a Whangarei KFC of thousands of dollars.
DNA evidence led police to Amber Ruth Waerehu, who was arrested in Auckland.
According to the summary of facts, Waerehu concealed her face with a pair of women's swimming togs and her co-offender wore a brown paper bag over her head before going into KFC.
They threatened a female staff member, stole $14,500 from a safe, then tied up the worker and put her in a toilet cubicle.
Possible saliva found on the togs was sent to ESR for analysis and the conclusion was that the DNA was eight hundred billion times more likely to be Waerehu's than anybody else's.
