-
The memorial at Perpignan - Source: ONE News -
Watch Video
-
View Photos
-
Related
The memories are still raw for family and friends of the crew who died off the French coast in the Air New Zealand plane crash at Perpignan last year.
A piece of New Zealand has been unveiled as they marked what happened a year ago off Perpignan.
The light spilled down from the clouds like a giant spotlight on the memorial as the three countries affected by the crash stood united together.
Looking out towards the crash site the rock with a piece of West Coast pounamu embedded in it is now a place to commemorate the seven men who died.
"They say that when you touch the pounamu the essence of you is infused into the stone," says Norm Thompson from Air New Zealand.
Christchurch engineer Noel Marsh never met his baby daughter Katie. She sat contentedly with her mother throughout the service.
Mementos from home were left on the memorial and the families then travelled out to the crash site, timed to be there at the exact moment the airbus A320 plunged into the water a year ago.
"It's quite surreal it's difficult to picture how it would have been on a stormy day and a plan dropping out of the sky," says Maggi Wride, sister of victim Jeremy Cook.
It is a time to reflect on the first year without a husband, son, brother or father.
"We had Katie the baby who has been born since this tragedy and it shows you the old message that life does go on and that's important to remember," says Wride.
And the men will always be remembered on this beach so far from home.
