All 13 people aboard a New Zealand skydiving plane that suffered an apparent engine failure yesterday managed to leap out in parachutes moments before the plane plunged into a lake, authorities said.
Police spokeswoman Kim Perks said there were six passengers, six crew members and a pilot aboard the plane operated by Skydive Taupo. She said that all of them landed safely and that some had been checked by medical staff, but she did not believe that any suffered significant injuries.
She said each of the crew members had planned to tandem dive with one of the passengers, and they managed to do just that as they abandoned the aircraft after the apparent engine failure. She said the pilot also leaped to safety in a parachute.
Skydive Taupo chief executive Roy Clements said in a brief statement that the plane encountered an engine problem shortly after it had taken off. He said transport authorities were on their way to the crash site to begin an investigation.
On its Web site, the company offers skydives from up to about 4,600m that come with up to a minute of freefall.
“You shimmy to the door until your feet are dangling over the edge. 3..2...1. out you go,” the company’s site says.
Robbie Graham, an artist who works at the Wildwood Art Gallery in the town of Waitahanui, said he was standing in front of the gallery when he saw a number of people in parachutes coming down above the lake about 1km away. He said he did not see the plane crash.
“I saw all these people coming down, and I thought that was a crazy place to be coming down, that they would all end up in the lake,” he said.
He said the area is popular for skydiving, but most people typically leap out of planes a few kilometers to the north, near Taupo Airport and above dry land.
He said the parachutists were about 200m above the water when he saw them, and the only thing that made sense to him was that perhaps they were engaged in some kind of training exercise.
It was unclear whether any of those aboard landed their parachutes in the water or whether they all managed to maneuver them to shore before landing. Police initially said the pilot landed in the water and swam ashore, but Perks said more recent information indicates that the pilot may have made it to shore before landing.
Graham said it was a stunning day and that many vacationers would have witnessed the crash from a nearby beach.
Lake Taupo is popular among vacationers and tourists at this time of year, during the southern hemisphere’s summer.
James Watson — the Nobel laureate co-credited with the pivotal discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, but whose career was later tainted by his repeated racist remarks — has died, his former lab said on Friday. He was 97. The eminent biologist died on Thursday in hospice care on Long Island in New York, announced the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was based for much of his career. Watson became among the 20th century’s most storied scientists for his 1953 breakthrough discovery of the double helix with researcher partner Francis Crick. Along with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, he shared the
OUTRAGE: The former strongman was accused of corruption and responsibility for the killings of hundreds of thousands of political opponents during his time in office Indonesia yesterday awarded the title of national hero to late president Suharto, provoking outrage from rights groups who said the move was an attempt to whitewash decades of human rights abuses and corruption that took place during his 32 years in power. Suharto was a US ally during the Cold War who presided over decades of authoritarian rule, during which up to 1 million political opponents were killed, until he was toppled by protests in 1998. He was one of 10 people recognized by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in a televised ceremony held at the presidential palace in Jakarta to mark National
LANDMARK: After first meeting Trump in Riyadh in May, al-Sharaa’s visit to the White House today would be the first by a Syrian leader since the country’s independence Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in the US on Saturday for a landmark official visit, his country’s state news agency SANA reported, a day after Washington removed him from a terrorism blacklist. Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted long-time former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad late last year, is due to meet US President Donald Trump at the White House today. It is the first such visit by a Syrian president since the country’s independence in 1946, according to analysts. The interim leader met Trump for the first time in Riyadh during the US president’s regional tour in May. US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack earlier
US President Donald Trump handed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban a one-year exemption from sanctions for buying Russian oil and gas after the close right-wing allies held a chummy White House meeting on Friday. Trump slapped sanctions on Moscow’s two largest oil companies last month after losing patience with Russian President Vladimir Putin over his refusal to end the nearly four-year-old invasion of Ukraine. However, while Trump has pushed other European countries to stop buying oil that he says funds Moscow’s war machine, Orban used his first trip to the White House since Trump’s return to power to push for
RSS