Helicopter crash victim known in Waimarino

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 5, Issue 26, 24 November 1987, Page 9

Helicopter crash victim known in Waimarino

Peter Button, the Wellington-based helicopter pilot who died on Friday when his machine clipped high-tension wires north of the capital, will be remembered in the Waimarino by those who participated in a major search and rescue operation almost exactly three years ago. He and his distinctive red and yellow Westpac rescue helicopter joined a total of 22 rotor-wing and fixedwing aircraft that gathered at the Raetihi airstrip in October 1984 to search for a light plane carrying three persons (two Philips Industries executives and the pilot) which went missing on a flight between Turangi and Wellington. Despite several promising reports of sightings and soundings (later proved false) of the missing plane over the Waimarino-Ru-apehu area nothing was found by the huge number of volunteer observers in a variety of aircraft.

Among the searchers were local helicopter pilot Lisa Patterson in her Wanganui Aero Work Bell Jetranger and W.A.W. managing director Richmond Harding in a Fletcher top-dressing plane. It was Richmond Harding who, following a 'hunch',

found the wreckage in the Kaimanawas near Turangi several weeks after the official search was abandoned. Peter button will be sadly missed by all those who met and worked with him during that massive search and rescue operation in the Waimarino three years ago.