Tragedy after tragedy

In the days after the 1931 earthquake all the news was about that. But there was another tragedy only a few days later that is now remembered as the first fatal passenger flight crash.
New Zealand’s first regularly scheduled passenger service began in 1930 when a company called Air Travel launched a service between Christchurch and Dunedin.
But so few people took it that it closed in less than a year.
Dominion Airlines began flying between Gisborne and Hawke’s Bay on December 22, 1930.
The service was valuable in the days after the Hawke’s Bay earthquake, helping to bring people in and getting news out.
It had been started by directors Sir John Luke of Wellington, Arnold Williams of Tokomaru Bay, William Richmond of Hastings, Ivan Kight of Dannevirke, James Kirk of Gisborne and Jack Newman and Henry Duncan, both of Nelson.
They had plans to expand including using amphibious planes to cross the Cook Strait eventually.
For planes to be financially viable in the early days of commercial flight, they often carried mail as much as passengers.
The company raised capital and announced it only needed four paying passengers a day to make it work.
It was, on paper, a good idea. Other than the roads it would be the only method of transport out of the East Coast - the train line did not open until 1942.
It led to a new aerodrome in Gisborne
On February 8 the plane, a Desoutter II, ZK-ACA, left Gisborne about 1.15pm expecting to drop mail in Wairoa. Witnesses saw the bag drop and saw the plane begin to rise again.
The plane then banked and the engines stalled. The plane dropped, nose diving into the side of the road near a Public Works camp about a mile from the Wairoa bridge.
People ran to help and found the plane with the nose buried deep in the ground. Immediately work started on getting to the three men known to be inside. A part of the right wing had to be torn off to get into the plane.
It was however too late, two of the men were dead and a third, who was found to be breathing, died within minutes.
They were one of the company’s founders and the pilot Flight Lieutenant Ivan Louis Kight, Walter Findlay, a well known businessman of Gisborne where he owned a bakery and catering business and William Charles Strand, who was the son of a former Lower Hutt mayor.
An inquiry found the pilot had tried to turn at too low an altitude when the engine failed. However that was challenged in
A legal case was taken against Dominion Airlines by the family of William Strand claiming damages saying the pilot, Kight, had not been the holder of a licence to allow him to fly with passengers. The court judgment awarded the family £3000 plus costs. But that was later overturned in appeal and Dominion Airlines awarded the costs back.
But by then the company was done and was made bankrupt.
The crash, which is barely remembered now, was the first fatal accident involving a scheduled passenger air service in the country.
Kight was buried in the Mangatera Cemetery in Dannevirke, Strand is buried in the Taita Old Cemetery and Findlay in the Taruhera Cemetery in Gisborne.​