Police, the Defence Force and Coastguard West Coast will spend three days next week searching for a light plane that disappeared in December 1978 with seven people on board, one of the longest-running aviation mysteries in New Zealand.
The operation will run from Monday 21 September to Wednesday 23 September and will be based at the boat ramp on Lake Moeraki, north of Haast in South Westland, police said in a release on Wednesday. The aircraft being searched for is ZK-EBU, a Piper Cherokee Six that vanished on a scenic charter flight almost 48 years ago. No trace of it has ever been found.
Acting West Coast area commander Mark Kirkwood said the boat ramp at the northern entrance to the lake would be used throughout the search. “To ensure the safe movement of personnel and equipment, we ask that the area be kept clear for the duration of the operation,” he said, RNZ reported.
People living nearby may notice more police and Defence Force staff in the area while the search is under way. Police have not said publicly what led to this week’s operation or what equipment will be used on the lake.
The Cherokee Six took off from Taieri aerodrome near Dunedin on 29 December 1978. The plan was a long scenic loop over Queenstown, Milford Sound and Preservation Inlet before flying back to Taieri. According to the Otago Daily Times, the plane was last seen flying past Milford Sound aerodrome from the direction of Sutherland Falls, heading out towards the entrance to the sound. RNZ reports that last contact with the plane was made while it was flying through Milford Sound.
On board were pilot Edward Morrison, 28, and six passengers from Dunedin. They were Earl Stuart, 40, Elizabeth Stuart, 37, David Stuart, 18, Alec Stuart, 38, Rosie Stuart, 37, and David Hogg, 20. Five of the seven shared the Stuart surname, and their families have waited nearly five decades without knowing where the plane came down.
Weather was poor that day. Volunteer searcher Gavin Grimmer, who runs the Find Lost Aircraft website, records reports of low cloud virtually down to sea level south of Milford Sound. Fiordland and South Westland are among the hardest places in the country to search from the air, with steep valleys, thick rainforest that closes over anything that falls into it, and cloud that can sit on the ranges for days.
Lake Moeraki has long featured in theories about the plane. Grimmer’s research sets out a report that on the day ZK-EBU disappeared, an aircraft matching its description was seen flying out to sea over the mouth of the Moeraki River in drizzly rain, turning about a quarter of a mile offshore and heading back up the river. The theory recorded on the site is that the pilot, flying low beneath cloud and running short of light, may have mistaken the Moeraki River for the Haast River while trying to find Haast aerodrome. The site also notes reports of crashed aircraft from a valley just south of that area.
If that sighting was ZK-EBU, the plane had flown a long way north along the coast from Milford Sound, beyond Fiordland and into South Westland. That possibility is why volunteers have long argued that the Moeraki area deserved a closer look.
Previous private efforts have struggled for money. In 2015 a Givealittle page was set up by the Lost Aircraft New Zealand group, on behalf of Grimmer, Clive and Michele Jenkins, and Nathan and Jonathan Mauchline. The group had lined up an overseas company willing to lend its foliage penetrating radar, which can pick out metal objects beneath forest canopy, at no charge. “We have made contact with a company overseas who are willing to donate the use of their latest technology foliage penetrating radar system for free, but we will need to pay for the operator’s travel expenses and overheads,” the appeal said. Those costs came to about US$10,000 for travel and accommodation and US$14,000 for five days of the operator’s time. The page raised $5,701 from 16 donors against a $35,000 goal, and the campaign closed in February 2016.
ZK-EBU is not the only aircraft Fiordland has swallowed. In February 1962 a de Havilland Dragonfly flown by Brian Chadwick disappeared on a scenic flight from Christchurch to Milford Sound with five people aboard. That plane has never been found either, and RNZ reported in 2016 that separate volunteer teams were still walking remote valleys on both sides of the Main Divide looking for it.
Planes lost in the 1960s and 1970s had none of the tracking that is taken for granted today. Satellite monitoring of distress beacons did not begin until the 1980s and there was no GPS record of the route, so searchers had only the flight plan, radio calls and whatever people on the ground happened to see. When a small plane went down in heavy bush, it could be close to a road and still never be spotted.
For the Stuart, Morrison and Hogg families, any find would bring an answer that has been missing since the summer of 1978. For the volunteers who have kept the case alive through fundraising and their own searches, next week brings police, military and Coastguard resources to the lake.
Police have asked the public to stay away from the Lake Moeraki boat ramp from Monday to Wednesday so the search teams can work safely. Newswire will report on the outcome when police release it.
Do you remember the disappearance of ZK-EBU in 1978, or do you know the Moeraki area well? Share your memories and thoughts in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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