Ryan B-1 Brougham G-AUNZ

This site is dedicated to all those families of the people that have tragically disappeared on flights in and around New Zealand. I only hope that from all the effort in building this site and from all the effort of those taking part in this venture, that it will bear fruit in bringing ‘closure’ to their memories!
Gavin Grimmer

Email: gavin@findlostaircraft.co.nz

Ryan B-1 Brougham G-AUNZ “AOTEAROA”

10 January 1928

Missing: John Robert Moncrieff

George Hood

This was the first aeroplane to go missing in New Zealand and never be found.
This was a flight that was supposed to be the first ever flight from Sydney, Australia,
to New Zealand and was to land in Trentham Racecourse in Upper Hutt.
There were many reports of sightings of the aircraft and/or “lights” all over the lower
North Island and the upper South Island that night but nothing was ever found of the
aircraft or it’s occupants.

Over the years Paul Beauchamp Legg carried out a total of twelve expeditions in the general area of Mt Stokes.... In his own words:

Read about some of it in my book, “My Masterton Flying Years.” I believe I have more information than anyone else now alive. All those who saw it and those who went on the search for the person/s with lights on the ridge between Mt Stokes and Mt McMahon- Little Mt Stokes have long since died but I did have the privilege of talking and meeting with some who had seen the aircraft and helped with the earlier searches. We had 80, including members of the Wairarapa and Ruahine Aero Club, the Airforce Search and Rescue Team and the local Teritorials on the second search. A film was made of another large search and other searches were made by myself and wife and or family members.

81 years later one is only to find the engine, seemingly a well overgrown rock, maybe a window or part of the instrument panel.

You can obtain a copy of the above mentioned book and his other books on:

http://www.paulsbooks.co.nz/

Paul is unique in that he used to fly DH90A Dragonfly ZK-AFB (also listed as missing on this website) when it was based in Masterton, where he was the Chief Flying Instructor at the time. He talks about this also in his above mentioned book. He would have more hours logged on ZK-AFB than anyone left alive!

November 2010

Over the years, there have been the occassional rumours of possible sightings of the wreckage of the Ryan G-AUNZ in the Golden Bay area, and so between a friend and myself, we tossed ideas back and forth as to the possible scenario of how, and if, it could have ended up there.

Reading through old newspaper articles that were published at the time of the disappearance, we discovered a couple of things that we had previously overlooked.