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A lack of co-ordination among rescue services has again been identified in an independent review of the search for Auckland businessman Michael Erceg following the crash of his helicopter late last year.
Erceg and his Dutch friend Gus Klaate died after the crash near Raglan in Waikato, but it took 15 days to find the crash site.
The official search was called off after six days and it was a private search funded by the family that eventually found the wreckage and the bodies.
A Rescue Co-ordination Centre was set up two years ago to overcome problems among rescue services, but the review says the centre struggled to co-ordinate those services.
The review of the search makes 41 recommendations including greater involvement from agencies such as the Civil Aviation Authority, police and defence.
It also suggests improvements over how families are dealt with, and the emergency equipment carried on aircraft. And it calls for private searchers to be brought under control of the Rescue Co-ordination Centre.
The centre accepts the report's finding that it had difficulty coping with the surge of information generated but the centre says the sheer scale of the exercise was the problem.
"This was the biggest search and rescue event New Zealand's ever seen with the possible exception of Erebus," Russell Kilvington of the Rescue Co-ordination Centre says.
If the helicopter had crashed one metre to the right or left of the crash site it would have been found within hours.
Search and Rescue Council chair Robin Dunlop says a working party will look at implementing some of the review's recommendations.
Roger Smith, a friend of Erceg, says it is vital the review's recommendations are taken seriously.
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