One tribute described Aitken as a \u201cdeeply loved and adored\u201d, daughter, sister, partner and friend. <\/p>\n
\u201cA beautiful young life taken far too soon, leaving behind a lifetime of love, precious memories, and hearts that will never be quite the same,\u201d the tribute read.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaddy\u2019s bright light, beautiful spirit, and the love she brought into the lives of those around her will never be forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n
Senior Sergeant Roger Schreuder said on Friday divers organised by the family recovered the woman\u2019s body at about 8am.<\/p>\n
The Police Dive Squad was expected to arrive that afternoon, he said.<\/p>\n
Chapel St remained closed until about 5pm while police recovered the car and carried out scene and forensic examinations.<\/p>\n
Stuff reported a woman standing in a group near the water could be heard repeatedly wailing, \u201cNo, no, no\u201d.<\/p>\n
Chapel Cafe staff member Steve Singh said he saw police speaking with people who appeared to be family members.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were looking upset\u201d as they spoke with officers behind a building.<\/p>\n
Heathcote\u2019s Tauranga store manager Brian Stewart believed this was about the third time a vehicle had gone into the water from Chapel St in the past six years.<\/p>\n
Last year, a man on a mobility scooter<\/a> went into the water and was injured.<\/p>\n In December 2021<\/a>, Maree Geary died after the car she was in plunged into the water. That was just weeks after another car went into the harbour<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One tribute described Aitken as a \u201cdeeply loved and adored\u201d, daughter, sister, partner and friend. \u201cA beautiful young…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,154876,28822,1558,5822,3944,15979,29422,6179,20589,296,6804,182602,111,43,139,69,15120,13737,1227,4054],"class_list":["post-633802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-aitken","tag-beautiful","tag-been","tag-bright","tag-car","tag-crashed","tag-crashes","tag-died","tag-harbour","tag-into","tag-light","tag-maddison","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-remembered","tag-spirit","tag-tauranga","tag-teenager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633802","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=633802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}