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Re: Answered my own question....

Posted by Chris Hinch on Thu Jun 20, 2002 06:15:29 AM

In reply top Answered my own question.... posted by Scott WRG Editor on Thu Jun 20, 2002 05:48:45 AM

I hate to tell you this Scott... it's not the Antartic - it was a snow covered airstrip in the middle of Central Otago in New Zealand's South Island (not far from Wanaka)after a sudden winter fall of snow had caught the aircraft (on charter) on the ground.

The passengers caught another flight out from a nearby airport with grader facilities, and the pilot was apparently going to wait it out. Why he changed his mind and tried to blast his way through 50cm (!!!) of snow lying on the strip apparently without even trying to walk the airstrip first, we can only guess. However, I wasn't there, so I don't know all the facts. It doesn't look good, though.

From the video it appears that the starboard u/c either folded or went into a ditch after swinging heavily to the left. From the audio it sounds as if he pulled power on both engines BEFORE the collapse and resulting prop impact with the snow, but you can still hear the impact as the prop hits. Gonna be expensive, those engines were recently overhauled, IIRC.

Tonight in a followup story TV3 says the aircraft wasn't as damaged as it could have been.

Damn shame - this is an immaculate aircraft, one of the original Viewmasters (?) with the big windows, owned until very recently by NZ Aerial Mapping who treated her with the respect she deserves. I was lucky enough to spend some time in her cockpit at the start of the year - her cockpit is damn near identical to how it looked when she bought back allied soldiers from Japanese POW camps after the war.

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