Location of incident: Pukenui

Incident Type: Aircraft Crash

The bodies of two men were recovered Pukenui Forrest just after 4pm.

Peter Beatty, 49, and Greg Nash, 56, were on route from Kaikohe To Whangarei on tuesday when their fletcher turbo prop aircraft went missing.

The weckage of the top dressing plane was spotted yesterday in dense bush in Pukenui Forrest Whangarei during an aerial search phase of a class 3 search rescue operation.

Today fourteen police search and rescue members and a westpac rescue helicopter and crew were involved in the efforts to recover the bodies from the scene. searchers will return to the site to extracate the aircraft which tonight will remain under police guard.

Post mortems will be conducted on Mr Beatty and Mr Nash in Auckland, likely tomorrow. Their bodies will then be returned to family.

ENDS

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