Erceg and Klatte found in wreckage

Published: 11:33AM Sunday November 20, 2005 Source: Sunday Star Times, Herald on Sunday, RNZ

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The bodies of liquor baron Michael Erceg and Dutch brewery executive Guus Klatte were found on Mt Kariori near Raglan on Saturday night.

Officials say Erceg, 50, and Klatte, 38, found in the wreckage of Erceg's crashed helicopter, appear to have died on impact.

Air accident investigators will spend Sunday at the site of the $1.2 million crashed Eurocopter, which disappeared on November 4 after Erceg and Klatte took off from Auckland on a flight to Queenstown.

Erceg was piloting the helicopter. 

The remains of the aircraft were found at 7pm on Saturday night in a gully between two ridges on a dairy farm, 15 minutes south of Raglan.

A recovery effort is expected to begin on Monday.

The wreckage was found 16 days after Erceg's helicopter was reported missing. A search was led by the National Rescue Co-ordination Centre, but was called off after four days. Erceg's family continued to fund a multi-million dollar private search.

The search intensified on Saturday after Erceg's brother Ivan reported hearing what he thought was his brother's voice saying "We're down here" over an emergency transmitter near Pirongia on Friday.

On Saturday, the pilot of a search helicopter was alerted to the wreckage after seeing broken branches in the gully during the last swoop of the area.

The helicopter was found near where it had last been seen on the radar on November 4.

A spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority, Bill Sommer, said investigators will now try to work out what went wrong. 

He said investigators hope to be able to provide more information later on Sunday about the state of the helicopter and how it was found.

 

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