“Offensive Hovering” is VERBOTEN!!

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Hovering helicopter ‘gravely offensive’

Facebook photos lead to $3750 fine

The Timaru Herald | 2:00PM - Tuesday, 09 April 2013


PEAK OFFENCE: A helicopter piloted by Jason Manderson hovering over the summit of
Aoraki/Mount Cook on December 24, 2011.

A COMMERCIAL PILOT was today fined $3750 for the "gravely offensive" act of hovering a helicopter over the summit of Aoraki/Mount Cook on Christmas Eve in 2011.

Jason Manderson, 40, of Waikanae, pleaded guilty to a charge of illegal aircraft hovering, under bylaw 10 (2) of the Mount Cook National Park Bylaws 1981, by letter to the Timaru District Court.

Under the bylaws it is an offence to land on or hover over any site within the Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park which is not a designated aerodrome.

In the summary of facts read to the court, the Department of Conservation (DOC) said the 3754 metre peak represented, to Ngai Tahu, "the most sacred of ancestors, from whom Ngai Tahu descend and who provide the iwi with its sense of communal identity, solidarity and purpose".

In April 2012, DOC's attention was drawn to two images on Facebook of a Squirrel helicopter positioned on the summit of Aoraki/Mount Cook.

Copies of the photographs were obtained and examination revealed they had been taken shortly after 9am on December 24, 2011, a minute apart, from opposite sides of the peak.

Manderson was piloting the helicopter, operated by South Westland-based Fox and Franz Josef Heliservices, on a commercial scenic flight with five passengers.

Spoken to on July 12, 2012, Manderson confirmed he had placed the photographs on Facebook.

At the time he claimed another pilot in the area had suggested that if he was to fly level with the summit he could get photos "to look like he was flying over the top of the mountain". He denied landing on or hovering over the summit, claiming it would have been easy for someone to doctor the photos to make it appear he had landed.

In passing sentence, Judge Joanna Maze said the offence was "seen as one of sacrilege to those to whom Aoraki/Mt Cook is of central cultural importance".

"The fact that you did it in the interests of trade and self-aggrandisement is a double offence."

Judge Maze said Manderson's action was seen as "gravely offensive" and as a result her starting point for sentencing had to be the maximum penalty available, a fine of $5000.

She gave Manderson credit for his early guilty plea in setting the fine at $3750.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/timaru-herald/news/8527577/Hovering-helicopter-gravely-offensive

[guest49]

When I first read this, I thought "FF sakes!  Havnt you got anything better to do with your lives!"
Then I recalled the halcyon days of my youth and the incredible feeling of being high up on the ice, with no sound but the tinkling of sastrugi fragments falling away from my crampons and thought how pissed off I would have been if some scrote in a slick was hovering over me with thumping rotors and howling turbine.
Never mind the sacred site rubbish - This sod should be grounded permanantly for gratuitously disturbing the serenity of the mountains!

[ssweetpea]

Opps....I opened this up thinking it was about vacuum cleaning int he early hours of the morning aka Offencive Hoovering.


I know where you are coming from Yak. I don't expect the summit of Rangitoto to be deserted but the path we take up there is a track less travelled so there is the illusion of being the only group. Is is shattered however when the bird you are carefully lining up in order to point it out the girls to watch flies off because someone in a helicopter buzzes in low. It is as bad as inadvertently getting to the summit at the same time as a full ferry load gets to the top of the other track.

[guest49]

From my [admittedly probably selfish] point of view, the only excuse for a helicopter to be on a mountain, is resupplying a hut, or SAR.
As far as climbing or sking goes, bloody well walk to the damned top!

[Caprox]

FFS! It is only a hovering helicopter. These ridiculous rules about 'offending' should be all scrapped. So it is offensive to hover a helicopter over Mt Cook? I would say that since helicopters did not exist in 1840, then that should not cause offence. Offence or breach of 'tapu' should only apply to the technology of maori circa 1840. Maybe chucking a spear over the summit would most likely be the only thing they could have imagined. There is also no record of any maori climbing to the summit prior to 1840, or for a long time after that.