PHOTO
Search crews looking for a plane that went missing in 1978 in South Westland are sending divers to take a closer look at an object in Lake Moeraki north of Haast.
The plane took off from Dunedin with seven people on board and has never been found but following recent information from volunteer aviation investigators, police, Navy and Coastguard crews have renewed the search.
On Tuesday the search team deployed sonar equipment from a Coastguard boat, as 12 family members of passengers watched from the shoreline.
The families were told shortly after midday that an object of interest had been found and police divers would investigate further.
Westland mayor Helen Lash, who was also watching, said it was an emotional day for relatives of the people who vanished.
"They're hopeful, but it's a restrained hope because the worst fear is that it's not what we're hoping it might be.
"I hope with all my heart that it is the plane that is found but for the families it's a nerve-wracking day for them."
Volunteers from the group Lost Aircraft New Zealand have spent decades on their own investigation work and searches for the plane.
Earlier this year, they decided to probe a whitebaiter's report of a low-flying plane heading inland up the Moeraki River at dusk on the day ZK-EBU went missing.
Air ambulance pilot Nathan Mauchline told RNZ the group had a breakthrough when team leader Gavin Grimmer took their search off dry land and onto water.
Using his own sonar equipment he found an object in Lake Moeraki measuring roughly the size of the plane, he said.
The group said they were blown away by the effort that police, the Defence Force and Coastguard were putting into the renewed search.
