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The Manawatu flight training school is closing for a period after a midair collision killed its chief flying instructor and a student.
The school, based near Feilding, was in mourning after two of its aircraft collided yesterday afternoon, causing one to plunge into the ground.
The accident has stunned students and the chief executive at Flight Training Manawatu, Michael Bryant.
"We're all absolutely devastated by this tragedy that's occurred," he said.
The flight school's chief flying instructor, Jessica Neeson, 27, was one of the two women who died when the single-engined Cessna training aircraft collided with another from the school.
She was highly regarded.
"Her passion was instructing and teaching people to fly and she was just loved and respected hugely by her students," said Bryant.
Today, the bodies of Neeson and her student, 64-year-old Patricia Smallman from Waikanae, were removed from the wreckage to prepare for their funerals.
Investigators from the Transport Accident Investigation Commission arrived at the crash site in a farm paddock, concerned at the number of recent air accidents involving student pilots.
"We'll look at that as part of the investigation and just see what role they did have to play," said Ian McClelland, air accident investigator.
"It's too early to talk about the actual circumstances surrounding the crash. Our job at this stage is to gather as much evidence as possible."
Investigators would now carry out a site survey, including looking at ground marks at the site, and interview at least five witnesses.
After the plane was removed from the site, investigators would look at the control positions, the engine and propellers, and the overall condition of the aircraft.
There was no requirement for planes of that size to have flight data recorders or cockpit voice recorders, McClelland said.
Investigators were yet to speak to the surviving pilot but would do so "sooner rather than later", he said.
The investigators had also spoken with the Airways New Zealand communications centre in Christchurch to obtain radar recordings from the area yesterday.
Bryant said Neeson had flown with the company for about five years.
The dead student was about halfway through completing her private pilot's licence, and the sole survivor of the collision had almost completed his commercial pilot's licence.
The training school doesn't know what could have been done to prevent the accident.
"You can have all the rules and regulations procedures in place to prevent such an incident. But occasionally things do happen," said Bryant.
The school has praised the Indian student who managed to fly his damaged aircraft back to the aerodrome.
He is one of 30 international students at the Feilding-based flying school.
The crash comes just two weeks after another plane crash in the Manawatu which left an instructor and student seriously injured.
Gary Skedgwell, 30, was on a commercial pilot's licence training flight from Hastings Airport with trainee Sam Metzger, 18, when the two-seater Air Hawke's Bay Piper Tomahawk crashed in the Ruahine Ranges, north of Palmerston North.
Metzger was treated for chest and leg injuries and Skedgwell suffered serious head, chest and leg injuries.
