Ep 8 Amberley Crash (screened Sept 17)
The remote South Island landscape of Amberley forms a stunning backdrop to an investigation into one of the Civil Aviation Authority's more puzzling cases.
On a clear spring day in 2004, the pilot of a small top-dressing plane was nearing the end of his day's work. He had already made 32 successful runs from the steeply sloping airstrip in the hills North of Amberley.
With his load of fertiliser replenished, he set off down the runway exactly as before. But this time the plane failed to take off, crashed through the first perimeter fence and became airborne briefly before ending in flames in the gully beyond.
The pilot had no chance of survival. The wreckage burned so fiercely that it is still smouldering the following day, when Steve Walker and Peter Stevenson Wright of the CAA arrive to begin their investigation into the cause of the crash.
As they piece together the trajectory of the plane, and interpret the evidence on site, they soon gain a picture of a catastrophic loss of control. But the more the investigators learn about the crash, the more the mystery deepens. There is no sign that the victim attempted to dump his load - the first action of any pilot when things start to go wrong on takeoff.
What event could have happened so quickly that the pilot had no chance to react?
In search of clues, Steve arranges a demonstration of an emergency dump with the help of a local pilot. Meanwhile the engine and other key parts are salvaged and subjected to detailed examination by specialist aviation engineers whose skills tease out the information locked in the wreckage.
But it is the autopsy report that suddenly throws a different light on the tragedy, and there is an unexpected twist when an eyewitness account raises a question mark over the validity of the pilot's medical certificate.
Special Investigators witnesses the full story being finally
teased out in the sober surroundings of Rangiora Coroner's Court,
in a case that has implications for every licensed pilot.
