Bobbie Reeve still searching for missing plane 54 years on
Thursday, 11 February 2016
A family of searchers believe they are hot on the trail of a plane wreckage that has sat undiscovered for 54 years, after vanishing without a trace.
For the past eight years, Bobbie and Lynnelley Reeve, along with their sons, Simon and Adam, have been searching for Brian Chadwick's Dragonfly.
The De Havilland Dragonfly ZK-AFB disappeared while on a scenic flight from Christchurch to Milford on February 12, 1962.
Despite a massive aerial search being conducted at the time, no-one found the aircraft, its pilot or remains of the four passengers who were on board.
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Reeve, who said his family's searches usually lasted five to six weeks at a time, believed he and his search party were 'close' to finding the plane, having located a woman's high heel ankle boot deep in the Main Divide.
He would head back down south to conduct another search in spring.
'It's been ongoing for us, we are filming as we go. We have documented everything we have – we know we're on it now.
'That shoe was way in the Main Divide and it was in a ravine. How does a woman's high heel ankle boot get on there?'
Reeve said years of research had led him to strongly believe the aircraft was in the Hopkins Valley area.
Over eight years, Reeve estimates his family have covered most of a valley, which forms a tributary to the Hopkins River – part of the Hopkins Valley, near Lake Ohau.
They travel in two 1973 Land Rovers, one towing a caravan.
'We've probably covered the main valley, which is about six kilometres long, and then both sides, they go up about seven to 8000 feet,' Reeve said.
'This is how we came across the shoe.'
Radio New Zealand reported another search party, led by Hastings man Gavin Grimmer, was convinced the plane was on the West Coast.
Grimmer has narrowed his search to an area near Jacobs River, south of Fox Glacier – far from the Reeves' search area.