Inquiries & Recommendations

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On 8 March 1994, ZK-PKC, a Piper Navajo Chieftain was landed wheels-up at Christchurch after a cable failure rendered the undercarriage lowering system inoperative.

New Zealand has completed its support for this inquiry. Please note: TAIC will not be producing a report for this inquiry.

TAIC calls on KiwiRail to resolve safety issues: risk oversight, risk controls, crashworthiness, crew training. Report also delivers insight into risk assessment, safety training, human factors. For want of these, locomotive went too fast over points, derailed, rolled onto side. All 3 crew escaped, injured.

The Marine Accident Investigation Bureau carried out a limited investigation of this occurrence, assisted by TAIC. On 17/9/09 the Commission closed the inquiry as MAIB is unlikely to produce a full report on the incident. MAIB will publish a report in digest format.

General On 19 February 2009, the Australian-registered passenger ship Oceanic Discoverer was at its berth in the New Zealand port of Napier. The crew were conducting a fire and emergency drill, of which part was to close and test the hydraulically closed watertight doors.

This accident occurred during a dual training flight to revise handling procedures prior to the student pilot being tested for the initial issue of a private pilot licence. One of the exercises to be revised was the recommended recovery procedure in the event of an un-commanded right roll, as might occur when subjected to an acceleration (or force) less than that due to gravity (G). The instructor had no intention of deliberately causing a low-G condition.

At the conclusion of a brief local flight the pilot descended the helicopter over the Dart River. The helicopter collided with a pair of electric fence feeder wires, spanning a dry channel between the eastern bank and an adjacent island, and shortly afterwards struck the river bed. The pilot received fatal injuries but the passenger survived the accident.

On 21 August 2008 the Commission declared that this occurrence does not meet the test of section 13(1) (b) of the TAIC Act, and approved closing the investigation without publishing a report.

On Tuesday 18 January 2005, a track warrant control irregularity occurred at Woodville when a track warrant was issued to a locomotive engineer authorising his train to berth on the main line at Makotuku to cross an opposing train. The locomotive engineer of the opposing train was already in possession of a track warrant authorising his train to berth on the main line at Makotuku.

On Monday 16 February 2004 at about 0250 Train P40, a Palmerston North to Oringi return shunting service, derailed when it ran into a washout at the 43.554 km, between Oringi and Woodville on the Palmerston North – Gisborne Line. Six wagons derailed and about 150 m of track were damaged. Surface water from intense rainfall ponded upstream of culverts at 43.554 km and 43.581 km and washed out about 5 m of track formation. There were no injuries. The safety issue identified was the running of trains in adverse weather conditions after special track inspections had ceased.

[A preliminary investigation showed that the circumstances were not likely to have significant implications for transport safety. Consistent with section 13 of the TAIC Act the Commission discontinued the investigation and no report was published.]

[Investigated on behalf of the Government of Solomon Islands. Direct any inquiries for copy of the report to the Minister of Transport of that State]