Inquiries & Recommendations

Ngā ketuketutanga me ngā tūtohunga

On 16 April 1993 a pedestrian walking at night on the railway line near Petone was struck and killed by an electric multiple unit. The accident occurred in an area where a previously existing walkway had been removed as a result of road widening. A safety recommendation that the walkway be restored was made to the roading authority.

On 9 February 2011 a Bombardier DHC-8-311 aeroplane (known as a "Q300" operated by Air Nelson Limited departed from Hamilton Aerodrome on a scheduled flight to Wellington Aerodrome. On board were 2 pilots, a flight attendant and 41 passengers.

On 28 September 1993, ZK-BHU, a Fletcher FU-24 aircraft collided with the terrain during a topdressing sortie. The cause of the accident was not determined.

[No report published by TAIC. TAIC provided local information for an investigation by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada. Refer to TSBC report.]

On Monday 11 October 2004 at about 0007, the sixth wagon on Train 244, a Wellington to Karioi express freight service, derailed at 4.458 km on the North Island Main Trunk line, inside Tunnel 1 after the right wheel on the leading axle of the leading bogie fractured. The train travelled a further 4 km before the locomotive engineer looked back along his train, saw sparks and stopped the train that was by then inside Tunnel 2. The derailed wagon caused some minor damage to the rail bridge over State Highway 1 at Ngauranga Gorge and to ground-level signalling equipment inside Tunnel 2.

On Friday, 26 July 2002, at about 0150, Train 533, a westbound express freight, derailed as it negotiated a 45 km/h speed restricted curve after descending a 1 in 51 gradient between Whangamomona and Te Wera. The train plunged about 12 m down the side of the track formation killing the locomotive engineer. A second crew member sustained serious injuries. The 2 locomotives and several wagons on the train were extensively damaged, but the track sustained minor damage only. Causal factors included:

On Monday 20 May 2013, Train 8219 was the scheduled Tranz Metro passenger train travelling from Porirua to Wellington. The train was an electric multiple unit consisting of four passenger coaches. At 0743 the rear coach of the train derailed as it was entering Wellington Station limits. Four of the 315 passengers on board the train received minor injuries. The derailed coach remained upright but sustained extensive damage to machinery underneath the coach floor. An air compressor was forced up through the coach floor into the passenger compartment.

On Tuesday 27 April 1999, Train 8203, a southbound Porirua to Wellington electric multiple unit train, departed Takapu Road at about 0800 hours. Due to partially locked-on brakes on the fifth car of the six-car consist, acrid fumes given off from the composition brake blocks entered the three rear cars. The resulting strong smelling "haze" caused discomfort and anxiety to passengers as the train passed through two tunnels on the way to Kaiwharawhara.

On 5 May 2014 the pilot of a BK117 helicopter with four other people on board experienced a double engine power loss during a hospital patient transfer flight between Ashburton and Christchurch. The pilot made an emergency landing without power onto farmland near Springston, with no injuries sustained by the occupants and minor damage to the helicopter.

On Saturday, 12 July 1997, at about 0322 hours an empty container on Train 320, a Mount Maunganui to Westfield express freight train, struck a footbridge at Puhinui, south of Auckland. The footbridge pier was badly damaged, as was a road overbridge further north, before the container fell from the train, blocking the adjacent down main. There were no injuries.

The i-Catcher, an 8-metre aluminium charter vessel operated by Fish Kaikoura, departed South Bay on 10 September 2022 with 11 people onboard for a photography charter. At about 1005, while returning from Goose Bay, the vessel experienced a sudden impact beneath the hull and rapidly capsized. Six occupants managed to escape onto the upturned hull and raise the alarm, prompting a major search and rescue response. Despite the rescue efforts, only six people survived; the remaining five passengers were later found deceased in a petrol-contaminated air pocket beneath the vessel.

On Sunday, 29 December 1996, at approximately 2233 hours, a collision occurred at the entrance to Wellington Harbour between the container vessel "Sydney Express", which was outbound, and the fishing trawler "Maria Luisa", which was inbound. The "Maria Luisa" capsized in the collision and five of the six crew members lost their lives. Safety deficiencies identified included poor bridge resource management on the "Sydney Express" and contravention of the collision regulations by the "Sydney Express", "Maria Luisa" and a third vessel, the yacht "Soundsgood".