Thirty seconds after Pacific Blue flight 89 took off from Queenstown, a Fire Rescue Service member called the control tower, remarking "how big are his gonads?"
The telephone conversation was played yesterday during a defended hearing in the Queenstown District Court for the pilot of the flight, a 54-year-old Auckland man who has name suppression.
He faces one charge, before Judge Kevin Phillips, of operating a plane carelessly at Queenstown on June 22, 2010.
The charge was brought by the Civil Aviation Authority last April.
The recorded conversation between Queenstown Fire Rescue's Nigel Henderson and Airways New Zealand flight service specialist Darryl Palmer, a pilot with 2900 flight hours, began with Mr Henderson saying "How big are his gonads".
Mr Palmer said "....... hell, I haven't seen this before".
Mr Palmer: "I was just saying if he doesn't ... set heading ..." Mr Henderson: "Oh, he's screwed".
Mr Palmer later said the pilot was "committed".
"He'll be gone ... he won't be coming back".
Mr Henderson said "he's got some balls".
CAA counsel Fletcher Pilditch asked Mr Palmer what he meant by "I haven't seen this before".
Mr Palmer said: "Possibly I hadn't seen a Bluebird [Pacific Blue aircraft] take off in those conditions, maybe".
When asked by defence counsel Matthew Muir if he knew Mr Henderson socially and the conversation was a "bit of back chat", Mr Palmer replied: "correct".
Air traffic controller Adam Sakareassen, of Queenstown, said the flight had landed at Queenstown Airport in fine weather. The weather front arrived later, bringing "significant bad weather".
A scheduled Mount Cook service from Christchurch to Queenstown turned back to Christchurch and a Queenstown-Christchurch-Mount Cook service was cancelled, because of the weather.
"The Pacific Blue crew decided to wait ... about an hour." Any decision regarding the weather was the pilot's, he said.
At one point, the crew advised it was happy with the cloud level, but there was a prevailing cross-wind. They reported the airline allowed a "maximum cross-wind of 16 knots".
Moments before the plane took off, the crew requested a wind check.
Mr Sakareassen said it was 17 knots, gusting 28 knots, and the wind speeds were "not steady".
"At 5.24pm, take-off clearance was given, with wind gusts at both ends [of] 25 knots."
The aircraft taxied and there was "nothing unusual" about the take-off.
"I was comfortable it would complete a normal departure."
In an email the next day, Mr Sakareassen concluded it was "worthy noting that conditions were the best they had been in the last hour at the time Pacific Blue 89 departed".
Queenstown Airport's former operations manager, Daniel de Bono, told the court he had seen some "interesting departures ... However, I have never seen anything like Pacific Blue's flight 89 departure ... at that time of day, in low lighting conditions".
Mr de Bono, also a pilot, said he became aware of the aircraft when it was "pushed back" from one stand to another, which was "very unusual".
Engineers said they were undertaking "a bit of push-back practice" while waiting for the weather to clear.
Conditions were "pretty cold", with a "typical southerly" featuring wind gusts, rain and cloud.
At one point, he believed the aircraft was going to be held overnight, but the passengers remained on board.
Mr de Bono said he went into former Queenstown Airport chief executive Steve Sanderson's office where he watched the flight take off.
It "appeared dark for that type of operation" and it was "something I had not really seen before".
"The other observation I made ... was that the windsock was definitely displaying gusty conditions ... around 20 to 25 knots.
"We were expecting Pacific Blue to cancel the flight and hold overnight, but for some reason the flight crew elected to continue."
He and Mr Sanderson were aware the flight crew had concerns about the wind.
"I know those wind speeds were peaking ... the aircraft elected to wait [for a break] ... that was basically the moment it took off. I talked to the CEO ... what did I just see?
"It seemed very unusual. We were surprised the aircraft took off and [were aware] that it was probably not going to be the end of this incident."
CCTV footage shown in court depicted the aircraft being pushed back from its stand and slowly making its way to the eastern end of the runway, complete a 180-degree turn and then take off towards the west.
Two cameras filmed the departure, one recording appearing significantly darker than the other.
Mr de Bono said the airport's CCTV cameras were designed to "artificially enhance lighting" to ensure images were still of use in low light.
