A coroner's inquest into the deaths of 11 people following a hot-air balloon crash near Carterton has begun more than two years after the accident occurred.
The four-day hearing began in the Wellington District Court this morning before Coroner Peter Ryan and will hear from 15 witnesses, including family members, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), a ballooning expert from the UK and a forensic pathologist from Australia.
Before the actual hearing got underway, Coroner Ryan spoke to the families, who filled the public gallery, in private for almost an hour.
Eleven people including pilot Lance Hopping, 53, perished when the hot-air balloon collided into power lines and plunged to the ground in a paddock near Carterton on January 7, 2012.
Coroner Ryan went to the crash site the day after the accident and said it was apparent the cause of death for all those on board was as a result of the "clearly unsurvivable" incident.
The focus of the hearing is to understand what happened and why and make recommendations to prevent a similar incident happening again.
"This will be particularly distressing or families of the victims and those giving evidence," Mr Ryan said.
"Unfortunately that cannot be avoided."
Detective Inspector Sean Hansen said a number of witnesses to the crash, which included family members of the victims following the flight in their cars, saw the collision with the power lines, the subsequent fire and the emergency service response.
Witnesses also went to the scene to perform CPR on two of the younger passengers, Alexis Still and Johannes Jordaan, who jumped from the balloon's basket while it was around 20 metres from the ground.
Carterton Mayor Ron Mark told Firstline today he hoped whatever recommendations are made in the Coroner's final report would be put in place immediately without exception.
"People don't want to go through this whole exercise only to find that the recommendations put up by authorities aren't followed through, and if they're not, they'd really want to know why."
The Transport Accident Investigation Commission's (TAIC) investigation into the crash found Mr Hopping had tested positive for cannabis use and made errors of judgement throughout the flight.
Chief commissioner John Marshall QC said it was "highly likely" Mr Hopping had smoked cannabis the morning of the accident.
TAIC called it the worst single New Zealand aviation accident since the loss of a DC10 aircraft on Mt Erebus in Antarctica in 1979. At the time, it was also the second-worst recorded single hot-air balloon accident in the world.
3 News
source: newshub archive
