Eighty years ago this week, a Gipsy Moth ZK-AAI took off on a flight from Hokitika bound for Christchurch. Pioneering Hokitika pilot Jack Renton and the former mayor of Greymouth, Jimmy Lynch, were on board. The weather was a mix of cloud and clear skies to the east of the Southern Alps when they took off at about 2pm. Thirty minutes later, residents near Mount Turiwhate, close to Jackson, heard a crash. The next day, searchers found the wreckage of the plane and the bodies of two men. Richard Waugh is an aviation historian who's written about the crash and its legacy in his book, 'Hoki to Haast'.
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