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Moynihan, Ryan Nov.1997; New Zealand
Topic Started: Apr 4 2007, 11:41 PM (614 Views)
monkalup
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The Old Heifer! An oxymoron, of course.
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Posted at 6:55pm on 21 Mar 2007

Police in Canterbury are holding a search this weekend for a pilot who disappeared almost 10 years ago.

Ryan Moynihan, aged 23, disappeared in November 1997. Extensive official and private searches failed to find any trace of his Cessna aircraft.

Canterbury district police search and rescue coordinator Sergeant Peter Summerfield says the search was prompted by new information. It will be part of an annual search and rescue exercise.

About 100 people will make a ground search over about 8ha of dense scrub, assisted by an RNZAF helicopter.

Sergeant Summerfield says an Auckland pilot studied radar tracks made by the aircraft as it flew south from Christchurch. His analysis suggests a crash site on the eastern side of Mount Peel.

http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/latest/20070...ppeared_in_1997
Lauran

"If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente.


In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
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monkalup
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search for lost pilot
Email this storyPrint this story 5:00AM Sunday March 25, 2007
By Catherine Woulfe


A search and rescue group is dropped off by a helicopter at Mt Peel. Photo Jason Boa
It is a strange day here in Geraldine, where the sky pushes flat against the land. Here, 82 volunteers are spending their weekend searching for something that may not be there at all.

They're looking for the wreck of a plane that dropped off radar almost 10 years ago but aren't expecting much. Even an empty plastic box would be a mystery solved: 23-year-old Ryan Moynihan had two cartons of whitebait containers in his Cessna 180 when he left Haast on November 8, 1997.

Officially this is a search and rescue training exercise.

But Darryl Sherwin, the man whose mathematical formula found the crashed helicopter of liquor baron Michael Erceg, says he is 95 per cent sure Moynihan's plane is in a particular basin of bush on the eastern slopes of Mt Peel. A big red cross marks the spot and an Air Force Iroquois is ready at the Peel Forest base, waiting to ferry search parties in.

Michael Moynihan, Ryan's father, stands politely to one side as CAA accident investigator Tom McCready gives the group the basics.


There are two ways to crash a plane, McCready says.

"It can make a line through the trees.

"If you can imagine coming down through the trees, the wings peel off pretty quickly. The fuselage would be like a dart. The tail end, of course, tends to stick up... Or else, if it's decided to spin in, it'll just impact the ground and the wreckage will be in the area of that tent."

Although the basin is a hotspot, searchers tramp to the top of the mountain and work their way down in a line, methodically. It will take most of the day to work down to the X. They'll fly out at dark and start again in the morning.

The helicopter drops the searchers directly opposite the basin, on a spur of golden grass thick with flies.

A group of young policemen from Christchurch gulp cans of creaming soda and confide they'd rather be at the cricket.

The older guys, the search and rescue gurus, smear on the sunscreen and inspect the bush with binoculars.

It's a nasty little creek, they say, nodding across the gully at the steep, dark bush fingering up dry rock faces.

Sherwin sees this spot differently.

After months of late nights and maths, he's as sure as he can be that the plane is in there. "Don't you write that," he grins. "Just say that I'm 'confident'."

His is a confidence to have faith in: this is the man whose calculations put him within 500m of the patch of bush that hid Erceg's crashed helicopter.

Erceg crashed into such a dense patch of bush, that helicopters flew over it countless times before spotting a single skid sticking out. One more second in the air and the wreck would have been in open farmland.

Sherwin's kicking himself now that he didn't persevere with an equation that could have leapfrogged the multimillion-dollar search.

He deals with "absolute facts".

And this weekend he is wired, pacing the campground, hoping, hoping, and trying not to promise.

Mike Moynihan first heard from Darryl 12 months ago, when he called to ask whether he could look into his son's disappearance.

Through all of the talk of wings peeling and planes impacting, Mike is calm. He slept "perfectly" last night, used to the to-and fro of hope; humbled, but not excited, by the scale of the search.

"It is a funny old day. It's really nothing to be excited about. If it was going to bring Ryan back, it would be exciting."

In the urgent, desperate weeks after Ryan disappeared, the helicopters flew every day.

Mike spent a fortnight leaning out of windows staring at the ground, clattering between Haast and Lake Tekapo, West Melton and the other side of Mt Peel.

How does a parent stop searching for his son?

"We ran out of places to look. You just can't take [friends and neighbours] away from their families and their work."

Every day he wonders. "I think it's a male thing. The male wants to know what went wrong. [Ryan's mother] just wanted him back."

Mike goes quiet when the Iroquois thunders in to pick up the first searchers. "This is going to be huge, isn't it?"
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story....jectid=10430714
Lauran

"If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente.


In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
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monkalup
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http://www.stuff.co.nz/4006497a6568.html

More searches possible: missing pilot's dad
By JO MCKENZIE-MCCLEAN - The Southland Times | Tuesday, 27 March 2007

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AdvertisementThe father of a pilot missing for 10 years has not ruled out further private searches, after a renewed large-scale hunt at the weekend failed to find clues to his son's disappearance.

Ryan Moynihan, 23, went missing in November 1997 after leaving West Melton airfield on a return whitebait run in his red and white 1955 Cessna 180.

Canterbury and North Otago police and volunteer search teams revisited Mr Moynihan's disappearance as part of an annual training exercise, after new research showed the aircraft could have crashed on the north-eastern side of Mt Peel.

This was an area that was not included in the original search.

Darryl Sherwin, the Auckland rescue pilot who investigated Ryan Moynihan's final journey, stood by his hypothesis that the plane was in the Mt Peel search area.

"I'm very disappointed of course, but just because we haven't found (the aircraft) doesn't mean it's not up there. It's tremendously rough terrain – it's mongrel country – we have not covered all the areas I would have liked. I still believe he's up there somewhere – maybe it's going to be a pig-hunter who finds him."

Mr Sherwin said, ideally, the search needed 1000 people covering every inch of the area looking for the aircraft.

Ryan Moynihan's father Michael, who spent the weekend with the searchers, said he was disappointed at not finding his son but had learnt not to get his hopes up too high.

"After 10 years you sort of learn to handle it," Mr Moynihan said.

"Originally it's like you are on a piece of elastic getting stretched out, stretched out then it snaps up.

"It would have been excellent but it's not going to be heartbreaking if we don't find it." Mr Moynihan had not discounted launching private searches for his son.

"It's up to Darryl. If he thinks there are areas that have not been searched that he wanted to search, and he thinks we should, I will definitely come back but at this stage nothing is planned." The searchers had done a terrific job in extremely tough conditions, he said.

The air force and police had brought in infra-red technology to help.

Searchers found two woolpacks and a sleeping mat but they were not believed to be connected to Ryan Moynihan.

Waimate searcher Selwyn Mercer said a member of his group who got separated from his team could have easily got lost.

"A lot of the searching is in bush, we're covered in scratches, there's blood everywhere – we were around a lot of bluffs." Oxford searcher Gemma Parkin said yesterday's search had been easier than the previous day when many were feeling the heat.

"It was very painful. I think we came across every prickly bush," Ms Parkin said.

"I think everyone was feeling pretty tired yesterday (Saturday) but we managed to get into open parts today."
Lauran

"If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente.


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monkalup
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http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story....jectid=10430996

Private search for pilot lost in 1997 likely
Email this storyPrint this story 5:00AM Tuesday March 27, 2007

Further searches for a pilot who went missing 10 years ago are possible, according to the rescue pilot who initiated a police Search and Rescue (SAR) exercise in South Canterbury at the weekend.

Darryl Sherwin of Auckland's Westpac rescue helicopter, who persuaded police to renew the search for North Otago pilot Ryan Moynihan in the Mt Peel Forest area, said yesterday that he wouldn't rule out a private search.

Mr Moynihan, 23, went missing on Saturday November 8, 1997. He had delivered whitebait to an airfield at West Melton, southwest of Christchurch, and was returning to the Waiatoto River southwest of Haast.

Extensive searching along the anticipated flight path of his 1955 Cessna 180 plane failed to find any trace of it.

More than 100 volunteers, with police and Air Force staff, made an unsuccessful search for Mr Moynihan and his plane at the weekend as part of an annual police SAR exercise.

Mr Sherwin, who plotted radar co-ordinates that helped find multimillionaire Michael Erceg's crashed helicopter near Raglan in 2005, told NZPA he was still convinced the Mt Peel Forest held the answer to Mr Moynihan's disappearance.


He said he and Mr Moynihan's father, Michael, would wait to assess data from the police exercise before making any decisions on a further search.

He said he had been surprised at the rugged, impenetrable country in the Mt Peel area, which had made searching extremely arduous.

"We still believe he's in there, but you could put 1000 searchers in there shoulder-to-shoulder and still not get into some areas, it's so rugged."

Mr Sherwin said the weekend search had been a "good learning experience" and he praised the volunteers who turned out.

"As a rescue pilot I've flown over that sort of terrain, but it's not until you get on the ground that you realise just how bad it is. It's mongrel country."

Mr Sherwin said he was interested in hearing from anyone in the South Canterbury, Mt Peel or Geraldine area who might have taken photographs on the day Ryan Moynihan went missing.

He said this would help him confirm weather conditions at the time, which he suspected had closed in around Mt Peel Forest.


Lauran

"If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente.


In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
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monkalup
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http://z13.invisionfree.com/PorchlightAust...topic=546&st=0&
Lauran

"If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente.


In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
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monkalup
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http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/423466/1030117

Aviation mystery closer to resolution


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Mar 20, 2007

A rescue pilot may be close to solving one of New Zealand's aviation mysteries.

Twenty-three-year-old Ryan Moynihan and his Cessna went missing in 1997 during a whitebait delivery from West Melton in Canterbury, to Haast.

Despite months of searching no wreckage was ever found.

However, with new radar mapping technology, rescue pilot Darryl Sherwin believes he might know where Moynihan's plane crashed.

"Any spare moments I get on the computer and crunch numbers...so it's been very time consuming but hopefully it's going to be well rewarded," he says.

The search will resume this weekend and will involve 150 volunteers including Air Force personnel. It will focus on an area that was not searched before, near Mt Peel, which is rugged terrain in South Canterbury.

"I'm very confident, I think I've done my homework right, I just hope I have. All I'm setting out to do is hopefully find Ryan and give closure to the family," says Sherwin.

And closure is something Moynihan's parents have been waiting a long time for.

"You give up and you realise he's gone but you don't know where he's gone. If they could find something this weekend, it would just give us finality," says Moynihan's father Michael.

Lauran

"If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente.


In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
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monkalup
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Search for missing aviator
Mar 24, 2007 6:42 PM

The man who found the wrecked helicopter of millionaire Michael Erceg is leading a search for another missing aviator.

It is 10 years since Ryan Moynihan's Cessna disappeared between Christchurch and Haast but Darryl Sherwin hopes he can help the young pilot's family find out what happened.

The rescue helicopter pilot found the wreckage of Erceg's helicopter in 2005 using new radar mapping technology and he is now "quietly confident" of finding Moynihan's crash site.

"I've done my homework. Everything at this stage indicates he's on the side of Mt Peel."

Moynihan's father Mike says he is humbled by the number of people "prepared to give up their precious weekends to come and bring a bit of finality to this thing".

The search area, about 100 kilometres from Christchurch, has not been checked before. The original searches were further south.

Don Geddes from Search and Rescue says it is reasonably steep terrain and thick bush and the search is being used as a training day for 150 volunteers.

Sherwin says it is up to the searchers to test their skills and look for anything out of place.

"We haven't got a clue what happened, or where he went...or what went wrong," Mike Moynihan says
http://tvnz.co.nz/view/news_national_story_skin/1035236
Lauran

"If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente.


In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
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monkalup
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http://www.infonews.co.nz/news.cfm?l=16&t=130&id=491

Search exercise looks for real crash
By NZPA
303 views


CANTERBURY

A search and rescue exercise in South Canterbury, which has a real 10-year-old mystery as its base, will resume tomorrow, a day in tough conditions yielded no result.

The exercise is trying to solve the mystery of what happened to North Otago pilot Ryan Moynihan in 1997

He was flying from West Melton, southwest of Christchurch, to Waiatoto River near Haast after delivering whitebait.

His Cessna 180 was never located but Darryl Sherwin, who plotted the radar co-ordinates that led to the discovery of millionaire Michael Erceg's crashed helicopter near Raglan in November 2005, contacted police last year with some fresh ideas about where to look.

It was decided to hold the annual Canterbury Search and Rescue (SAR) exercise in the area Mr Sherwin identified and he has travelled from Auckland to help with the exercise.

Seventy-eight searchers from the Canterbury and South Canterbury SAR groups began in Mt Peel forest shortly before 9am.

Sergeant Peter Summerfield said the conditions today had been much harder than expected.

"It's been particularly difficult," he said.

"The terrain is steep, with very dense vegetation, it's extremely hard, tough country.

"It may not look hard, eight square kilometres, but you're walking along, you get to a bluff, have to go around it then get back to the search line.

"And it's 30 degrees in there -- it knocks the stuffing out of you."

He said the exercise would resume tomorrow, and they hoped to get a result.

About 60 of the searchers were volunteers and other volunteers were involved in the organisation of the exercise.

Mr Summerfield said search teams were deployed by helicopter and vehicle to two search areas.

The search is on northeastern side of Mt Peel Forest, including the Lynn river catchment.

The area to be searched was not covered in the air or land search 10 years ago.

The Moynihan family had been fully consulted about the search.


Lauran

"If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente.


In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
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