Annual Canterbury District SAR exercise 23-25 March 2007 - Peel Forest
The Canterbury Search and Rescue exercise this year will be based at Peel Forest and involve a real situation in the search for an aircraft which went missing on 8 November 1997.
Sergeant Peter Summerfield, Canterbury District Police Search and Rescue Co ordinator, says that the situation is treated as though it is an actual operation.
"The area to be searched was not covered in the air or land search ten years ago. More research has been done since then looking at the information and this is an area indicated as being a possible location for the missing aircraft," he says.
SAR organisations taking part
Fairlie, Lake Tekapo, McKenzie Country, Waimate, Timaru, Pegasus, Oxford, Methven, Ellesmere and Amuri. About 150 people all up.
Supported by
Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Group.
Salvation Army, Timaru, doing the catering
RNZAF
The background
Saturday 8th November 1997 between 8:30 am and 9:00 am, 23 year old Ryan Moynihan departed Waiatoto River, 30 nautical miles to the south west of Haast on the last white-bait run for the white-bait season to West Melton airfield, 7 nautical miles west of Christchurch International airport.
Ryan was piloting a red and white 1955, Cessna 180, serial number 31298, registration ZK:FMQ.
Ryan arrived at West Melton at approximately 11:00 am that day and was met by his agent where he unloaded the white-bait; he then proceeded to reload the aircraft with return freight. The freight consisted of a number of cartons containing plastic pottles used to package white-bait into, plastic baskets, vegetables and possibly three or four red 20 litre plastic jerry cans of aviation fuel. (It was never confirmed whether the jerry cans were actually loaded or not.)
It could not be confirmed if the aircraft was totally refueled for the return flight. Ryan indicated to the agent that he was going to wait for an improvement in the weather before departing on his return flight. The agent left Ryan and drove into Christchurch city.
At 11:35 am Ryan rang his base manager on a cell phone, he was informed that the weather was much the same as when he left, Ryan indicated he was going to wait for a couple of hours for the weather to improve.
At 11:37 am Ryan rang his parents 0800 number; his call went straight to the answer phone. These calls were confirmed by Telecom records four or five days later.
At approximately 6:30 pm the Waiatoto base manager became concerned that she had not heard from Ryan and started to make enquiries as to his whereabouts.
The Search
That evening the New Zealand Police and RCC were advised that Ryan and his aircraft were missing, various searches of hangars and airfields were made but to no avail.
Sunday 9th November: A full scale search was launched, although it was not certain where to start looking. At approximately 11:30 am a Haast resident reported seeing a Cessna aircraft pass the Turnbull / Okuru valleys at 3:00 pm on the previous day, definitely climbing and to be the white-bait plane. The search concentrated on this area at first.
Over the following days extensive searches were made of the Haast, Makarora, Lindis Pass, Ohau, Tekapo and Burkes Pass areas without success.
Tuesday 11th November: Airways reported that an unidentified primary aircraft target was tracked on radar from approximately 7 nm south west of West Melton to its finishing point 60 nm to the south west of Christchurch near Mt Peel. Initially it was discounted as the target appeared on radar only a few minutes after the cell phone call that Ryan made to the base manager at Waiatoto, where he had stated he was going to wait for a couple of hours for the weather to clear. When all other radar targets were accounted for, it was considered that this was Ryan heading back to Waiatoto.
Thursday 13th November it was reported to RCC that the radar had been extended to its maximum range limit and that an unidentified primary target was seen to be circling in the Two Thumb Range area. The Two Thumb Range area was searched without success. The official search was suspended that afternoon at 4:00pm.
Over the next few weeks various areas on the West Coast were searched by private search parties as far afield as Ross and Hokitika without finding a trace of Ryan or his aircraft.