Part of missing plane found?

Press, 5 July 1983, Page 2

Part of missing plane found?

Westport reporter

Westport’s Coaltown director, Mr Peter Harker, is in Christchurch with what he believes is an air cleaner or supercharger snorkel off a fighter plane which has been missing for almost 40 years.

He hopes a positive identification can be made by Air Force officials at Wigram.

Mr Harker recovered the aluminium or alloy metal fragment on Saturday in remote bush country in a locality known as the Haystack, about 35km west of Reefton and slightly north of Inangahua. He described it as being a metre long with nine wing nuts with the words, “Lion 260,” imprinted on them.

He believes it could have come from a gull-wing F4U Corsair aircraft which disappeared with its pilot, Brian Barstow, on November 11, 1944. There had been several reported sightings of the aircraft, especially over the

last six months, although most have been in the Berlins Bluff region of the Buller Gorge. Mr Harker’s find was on the opposite side of the river. However, it is believed that the aircraft could be anywhere within a 100 km radius of Berlins. Mr Harker thinks there could be much more remaining of the Corsair near his recent find. “The piece we found was on a big shingle slope,” he said, “but there could be much more scattered over a wide area in the scrub.” The director of the R.N.Z.A.F. Museum at Wigram, Squadron Leader John Barry, said last evening that he had looked at the aircraft part found by Mr Harker, but it would be several days before the part could be confirmed or otherwise as coming from a Corsair. This would be done by trying to match the part with a picture or diagram from a publication of Corsair parts.