Nikola Labes (29) attended Columba College.
She has lived on and off in Australia for about 10 years.
She was piloting a Cessna 210 on a scenic flight from Kakadu National Park with five passengers when the plane's engine failed on approach to the airport.
While keeping her air speed up and thinking "don't stall it", she realised she was not going to make the runway, leaving the beach the only option.
Only once she had hugged and ushered her uninjured passengers from the plane, did the reality of what had happened sink in.
"'Oh no', I thought, 'it's on the beach'," Ms Labes said.
She said the most surreal part was seeing her friends and workmates running up the beach towards her and wondering how they knew what had happened.
As a former flight instructor, she had practised emergency landings many times, but this was her first "real life" emergency, she said.
Her boss, Barrier Air operations manager Thijs Bors, told the Northern Territory News that Ms Labes did a "fantastic job" bringing in the plane with minimal damage and no-one injured.
"Her training and skills resulted in a textbook landing."
Ms Labes started flying in 2006 as a hobby, but soon gave up her "day job" as a restaurant manager in Sydney to fly full-time.
Support from friends, family in Dunedin, and her colleagues since the incident had been "awesome", she said.
