Two killed in plane crash are named

27 July 2010

Police can now confirm the names of the two women killed in an air crash in Feilding yesterday.

They were, Jessica Neeson, aged 27, Chief Flying Instructor at Flight Training Manawatu and student pilot with her in the aircraft was Patricia Smallman, aged 64, from Waikanae.

Fire crews have now removed the two victims from the air crash near Feilding while investigations continue into the cause of the accident.

Two Cessna 152s collided about 3.30pm yesterday, 5.6km south-east of Feilding killing two in one plane while the other plane driven by a male pilot in his 20’s managed to land his aircraft safely at nearby Taonui Airfield and was uninjured.

100 Years Ago — and the Maori Long March begins

Māori politics was dominated by the influential MPs (and sometime Cabinet ministers) Māui Pōmare ( Waitara statue photo above) and Apirana Ngata.

The 1920's also saw the rise of Tahupōtiki Wiremu Rātana’s religious movement, and the emergence of Te Puea Hērangi in Waikato.

Ngata worked hard to foster Māori scholarship and education and preserve traditional arts and culture.

He convinced the government to establish a Board of Maori Ethnological Research (1923), a Maori Purposes Fund Control Board (1924) and a School of Maori Arts and Crafts in Rotorua (1927).

The Reform government also took the first, tentative steps towards settling longstanding Māori grievances.

Agreements with Te Arawa in 1922 and Ngāti Tūwharetoa in 1926 recognised their respective rights over the Rotorua lakes and Lake Taupō, and led to the establishment of trust boards with some government funding.

Commissions of inquiry which examined Ngāi Tahu grievances (1920–21) and the Waikato and Taranaki confiscations (1926–27) recommended that modest compensation be paid.

Kāpiti and Coast Independent

Victims Named

Two killed in plane crash are named