A New Zealand aviation expert is sceptical a missing Dragonfly lost 61 years ago, will ever be found in the area searched unsuccessfully at the weekend.
The plane disappeared on February 12 in 1961 after leaving Harewood Airport in Christchurch on a sightseeing flight to Milford Sound.
Five people were on board - British pilot Brian Chadwick, Australians Louis Rowan, Darrell Shiels and newly-weds Elwyn and Valerie Saville.
The disappearance sparked a huge search response over the following week as 34 aircraft flew 167 sorties over 400 hours in the hunt for the aircraft and its occupants. Since then, countless people and groups have tried solving the mystery.
A renewed search was mounted at the weekend, armed with the latest technology, focusing on the Karangarua River to Fox Glacier area.
But the police-led search came up blank.
Search leader Senior Sergeant Mark Kirkwood, of Greymouth, said nevertheless, "the exercise was a valuable opportunity for Police, LandSAR and Surf Livesaving to work together to further develop search and rescue capability on the West Coast."
However, Rev Richard Waugh, who wrote the 2005 book Lost ... Without a Trace about the missing Dragonfly, maintains the pilot's intended route was on the east coast, not the west.
"It depends how far Chadwick got down, but I don't think it will be found near Hokitika or Ross or the glaciers.
"If they did find something there (Karangarua) it could be another missing plane, but regardless, it's all in the public interest.
"A fundamental part of the question is, did he even go across the Whitcombe Pass or across to the glaciers?" Mr Waugh said.
"Chadwick said he was heading across to McKenzie and then to Queenstown, and the weather was not very good in the alps so the evidence would suggest the McKenzie route."
Mr Waugh's father Brian Waugh was chief operator for West Coast Airways at the time and was a close friend of the pilot Brian Chadwick; both were British, ex-RAF and had flown in the United Kingdom and then the South Island.
"From Milford, Mt Aspiring and Haast that is a huge big area, it's tiger country," Richard Waugh told the Greymouth Star.
"That's what I often call New Zealand's 'Bermuda Triangle'. People living in Auckland or that have no idea how rugged it is. My father spent five years searching for Chadwick, they were great mates together, but it was all to no avail."
Another puzzle fragment is the discovery of part of a seatbelt, washed up on a South Westland beach in late 2021.
"I think any search could be useful but I am a little dubious as to what is produced. Other experts have said to me that the seatbelt isn't from a Dragonfly. The expert made a point that it's not a 1930s seatbelt, it's a 1950s seatbelt and in his view the Dragonfly would have had a refit in the 1950s. I'm a bit interested in this as I'm an expert and haven't yet been consulted.
"We had a meeting on February 12 in Christchurch, with more than 100 people present and the search groups gave a professional presentation."
The three main search groups that have been historically involved in the searches - all think Fox Glacier is not a hot spot.
"Everyone could be wrong though, and the search teams could find it, which would be great."
- By Meg Fulford
