{"id":630963,"date":"2026-10-15T02:54:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T02:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/630963\/"},"modified":"2026-10-15T02:54:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T02:54:09","slug":"air-force-shares-pictures-from-rescue-of-hawkes-bay-teen-missing-after-school-hike-in-ruahine-forest-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/630963\/","title":{"rendered":"Air Force shares pictures from rescue of Hawke\u2019s Bay teen missing after school hike in Ruahine Forest Park"},"content":{"rendered":"
He said his son had fallen in the forest and was knocked unconscious for a period, probably 30 minutes or so, during the ordeal.<\/p>\n
Inside the helicopter after the teen was rescued. Photo \/ Royal NZ Air Force<\/p>\n
He was unsure how his son became separated from the group or how he had fallen.<\/p>\n
He was hugely grateful for the efforts of all involved in the search who brought his son home safely, and for the support from the school.<\/p>\n
He said if it weren\u2019t for the helicopter, it would have been very difficult to locate his son.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe saw the helicopter and [yelled] \u2018help me, help me\u2019,\u201d the dad said.<\/p>\n
The RNZAF has since shared a post about the rescue.<\/p>\n
\u201cCrew on an NH90 helicopter say it was a great result after finding a missing teenager in the Ruahine Forest Park and flying him to safety.<\/p>\n
The helicopter crew after spotting the lost teen. Photo \/ Royal NZ Air Force<\/p>\n
\u201cThe crew had been in the area conducting mountain flying training when they were retasked to respond to the search and rescue operation for the student. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe teenager had become separated from his group, prompting a search by New Zealand Police and Land Search and Rescue volunteers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe NH90 crew began their aerial search in the vicinity of Sunrise Hut.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey searched tracks in that area along with Top Maropea Hut before conducting aerial searches along the Waipawa River Valley, which is where they found the teenager.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey winched the student into the helicopter and flew him to safety, where he was met by police and reunited with family.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe crew also then extracted ground search volunteers who had spent a long night searching for the teenager after he was reported missing on Tuesday.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the rescue, a Taradale High School spokeswoman said they were \u201cthrilled\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to say a huge thank you to the police, Land Search and Rescue personnel, our staff and everyone else involved in the search.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He said his son had fallen in the forest and was knocked unconscious for a period, probably 30…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":630964,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,68,1561,5504,5760,3247,71,1976,24826,78,6501,111,43,139,2551,69,1118,8143,422,2202,8527,196377,4062,3168,180,12633,5163,4054],"class_list":["post-630963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-air","tag-bay","tag-following","tag-force","tag-forest","tag-from","tag-hawkes","tag-hike","tag-in","tag-missing","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-night","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-park","tag-pictures","tag-remarkable","tag-rescue","tag-ruahine","tag-school","tag-shared","tag-shares","tag-spent","tag-teen","tag-teenager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630963","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=630963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}