Crews to wait for daylight to continue search for missing chopper after oil slick, wreckage seen

Saturday, 21 July 2018

Helicopters searching for the chopper that went down in Lake Wanaka on Saturday.

The search for a missing helicopter feared to have crashed near Wanaka has been stalled until Sunday morning.

A police spokeswoman said search and rescue teams had reached the wreckage before the search was called off, but had not located a body.

Multiple helicopters are involved in the search.

The search was suspended because of the dark.

An oil slick and wreckage seen at Lake Wanaka is all that has been seen of the Robinson helicopter when it disappeared at 1.30pm.

Stevensons Arm is not accessible by land.

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The helicopter, with just the pilot onboard, was reported by a helicopter company to have disappeared from its tracking systems.

An oil slick 1km north of Stevenson Island and wreckage on the island's shoreline have been seen. The area is at Stevensons Arm in the south-east corner of the Otago lake. It is understood the area is not accessible by land.

Rescue Coordination Centre New Zealand (RCCNZ) senior search and rescue officer Chris Henshaw said three helicopters from the same company retraced the flight path of the missing aircraft. Those craft had seen the oil slick and wreckage, he said.

RCCNZ is currently working with the police, Coastguard NZ, a land search and rescue team and two additional helicopters to expand the search.

Searchers would scour the area on Lake Wanaka where the oil slick was seen, Henshaw said.

Another team would land on Stevenson Island where wreckage was sighted.

Part of an Otago community had also banded together to aid in the search.

An RCCNZ spokesman later said the search had been suspended overnight as it was too dark to keep looking.

The Transport Accident Investigation Commission will investigate the incident.

No more details were available.

In 2016, Robinson helicopters were placed on the Transport Accident Investigation Commission's 'watch-list' of the nation's most serious transport concerns.

At the time, about 300 Robinson helicopters were registered in New Zealand – mostly R22 and R44 models – comprising about 40 per cent of the country's total helicopter fleet.

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