Air senior pilot Nathan Dale-Emberton has rejected claims he carelessly flew into clouds while on a tourist flight to Milford Sound as ‘‘ludicrous''.
Mr Dale-Emberton (45), of Queenstown, is facing two charges of operating an Airvan GA8 in a careless manner and two of operating the aircraft in breach of CAA visual flight rules, following flights to and from Milford Sound on September 27, 2005.
Appearing in the Queenstown District Court yesterday on day four of his hearing, Mr Dale-Emberton told Judge Colin Doherty, of Christchurch, the claims - by four paying passengers aboard the aircraft - were wrong.
In January, the court heard passengers on board the scenic flight had feared for their lives, claiming Mr Dale-Emberton had flown through cloud and they had been unable to see during the flight to Milford Sound.
It was also claimed he flew in and out of cloud - occasionally emerging near rock faces - on an attempted flight from Milford Sound back to Queenstown later the same day, and lost sight of a helicopter just 70m away before aborting the flight because of the weather conditions.
Yesterday, Mr Dale-Emberton said anyone flying in the manner described would be ‘‘dead pretty quickly''.
‘‘I wouldn't go through cloud in a pass because I wouldn't know where the mountains are,'' he said.
Photographs taken by the passengers during the flight showed broken high cloud and patches of blue sky over Lake Wakatipu, and more high overcast conditions and cloud hugging nearby mountains on the flight from Queenstown to Milford Sound.
One photograph appeared to show snow showers, but Mr Dale-Emberton insisted they flew well clear of the snowflakes and definitely not through them.
‘‘It wasn't doom and gloom; it was a point of interest,'' he said.
Mr Dale-Emberton said he had conducted his usual weather checks and pre-flight safety briefing and had no reason to be concerned about the weather.
The trip from Queenstown to Milford Sound passed without incident. They flew over the Adelaide saddle and out to the West Coast - to check for building cloud - before landing, he said.
The hearing resumed yesterday. It had been adjourned after three days in January after the Crown took longer than expected to lay out its case.
Mr Dale-Emberton, from Wales, moved to New Zealand with his wife in 1995, and had accumulated 2670 hours of flying time since obtaining his private and commercial pilots licences in 1996, he said.
At the time of the September 27, 2005 flight, he had 700-800 hours of experience in mountain flying between Queenstown and Milford Sound, having flown the route between 300-400 times, he said.
Earlier yesterday, Mr Dale-Emberton's defence lawyer, Sonia Vidal, failed in a second bid to win a stay of proceedings, after attacking flaws in the Civil Aviation Authority investigation.
She argued CAA investigators had erred in not obtaining crucial flight data, including Milford aerodrome ‘‘strips'' - which record air traffic movements and times -and tape recordings of air traffic control conversations, which included weather details.
The tapes were lost after being routinely taped over one month later, the court heard.
Yesterday, Judge Doherty agreed the missing evidence would have been helpful, but said it related to largely ‘‘collateral'' issues concerning flight times, aircraft and weather details.
The central issue - whether Mr Dale-Emberton was careless and flew into cloud or not - would come down to his assessment of the witnesses, he said.
