{"id":608491,"date":"2026-09-22T20:08:19","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T20:08:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/608491\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T20:08:19","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T20:08:19","slug":"object-found-no-indication-of-missing-dunedin-plane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/608491\/","title":{"rendered":"Object found \u2018no indication\u2019 of missing Dunedin plane"},"content":{"rendered":"

Teams searching a South Westland lake for a Dunedin plane that went missing in 1978 say an object sighted does not appear to be an aircraft.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Piper Cherokee Six\u00a0went missing in 47 years ago. It took off from Dunedin with seven people on board and has never been found.<\/p>\n

But following recent information from volunteer aviation investigators, police, Navy and Coastguard crews have renewed the search.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday,\u00a0the search team deployed sonar equipment\u00a0in\u00a0Lake Moeraki, north of\u00a0Haast, from a\u00a0Coastguard boat\u00a0as 12 family members of passengers watched from the shoreline.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"The search team deployed sonar equipment from a Coastguard boat on Tuesday. Photo: RNZ <\/p>\n

Fine weather aided the multi-agency search operation, led by police, that\u00a0began at 8am with a\u00a0karakia led by local iwi.<\/p>\n

Coastguard West Coast volunteers launched the\u00a0boat about 9.30am with Navy personnel on board in fine conditions, a police statement said.<\/p>\n

About\u00a012.30pm, the weather turned, rain started to fall and thunder\u00a0could be heard.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"The ZK-EBU aircraft took off from Dunedin and disappeared in December 1978. Photo: supplied <\/p>\n

Sonar reports showed an object of interest and the dive squad was deployed to investigate it about 1pm.<\/p>\n

Senior Sergeant Mark Kirkwood, who is in charge of the operation, said the\u00a0object was worth looking at closely, but they were\u00a0not confident it was an aircraft.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter 47 years, we understand the significance of this moment for the families of the seven people who disappeared, some of whom are here,\u00a0and for everyone who has worked to find answers about what happened to them.<\/p>\n

“We will take time tomorrow to have a closer look.”<\/p>\n

The search would continue on Wednesday and further analysis of sonar imaging would\u00a0take place.<\/p>\n

“We will continue to search other areas of the lake that we did not search today,\u201d Snr Sgt Kirkwood said.<\/p>\n

Police\u00a0have asked members of the public to keep clear of the operational area while the work continued.<\/p>\n

– Allied Media and RNZ\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Teams searching a South Westland lake for a Dunedin plane that went missing in 1978 say an object…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":608492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-608491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=608491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}