Pilot Changed Flight Plan Before Crash

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31007, 12 March 1966, Page 3

Pilot Changed Flight Plan Before Crash

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, March 11.

Non-emergency changes of flight plans in the air were criticised today by the Chief Inspector of Accidents (Mr O. J. O’Brien) in a report on a crash last year which took the lives of four members of an Auckland family.

Arthur Frank Newbold Black, aged 43, of Howick, his wife Edith, 15-year-old daughter Joy and 11-year-old son John died when a Beechcraft 23 Musketeer crashed in the Ruakumara range on the east coast on October 30.

Mr O’Brien found the

accident was caused by loss of control when the pilot became disoriented in cloud.

The Beechcraft crashed on a planned flight from Auckland to Taupo, Napier, Gisborne, Opotiki and Rotorua. Mr O’Brien said Black had planned to make the Gis-borne-Opotiki sector by way of the coastline.

At Tolaga Bay 26 miles north of Gisborne, the pilot advised he was altering heading to fly directly across the Ruakumara range to Opotiki. Much of the range in the locality of the flight was covered by cloud. People on the ground heard the engine progressively increase to a high pitch and then cease.

A search and rescue party

found the wrecked aircraft on November 1. Black had said at Napier that he intended to land at Gisborne and Opotiki. He had been given permission to fly as far as Gisborne. Later he told the Gisborne control tower that he would not land at Gisborne but would go on to Ruatoria. He made another call to let the tower know of his decision to cross the Ruakumara range.

Another pilot in the area called Black by radio to tell him a crossing of the range was impossible because of heavy cloud. The message was probably not heard. “Had Black landed at Gisborne he would not have been permitted to proceed further that day," Mr O’Brien said. Black had attempted to find a break in the cloud over the range to avoid flying to Opotiki around East Caph, where the cloud was low and dark. PUBLIC CONCERN Mr O’Brien said the accident caused considerable public concern, and it appeared to have been widely believed that Black, holder of a new private pilot’s licence, should not have been allowed to make such an extensive crosscountry flight until more experienced. “This attitude is understandable, but it must be stressed that, provided the civil aviation regulations are adhered to and, when applicable, the Royal New Zealand Aero Club cross-country procedure is followed, no pilot should encounter serious trouble,” said Mr O’Brien. Black’s flight had been safe as long as he followed the authorised flight plan. “It only became unsafe when he altered it in the air," Mr O’Brien said. Mr O'Brien said that what might appear to be a justifiable and logical change of flight plan to a relatively in-

experienced pilot might in fact be fraught with danger. “This is the second accident within the last year where a non-emergency change of flight plan in the air has created the conditions which made the accident possible,” said Mr O’Brien. He said flight plans should be followed rigidly unless an emergency dictated otherwise.