Soldier dies in Unimog accident
23 February 2005
A soldier was killed today and two others are missing after a New Zealand Army Unimog vehicle left the road and crashed near Queenstown.
Police said the soldier and vehicle were taking part in an army driver training exercise when the Unimog crashed into the Kawarau River early this afternoon at the Roaring Meg power station in the Kawarau Gorge.
Ambulance and a rescue helicopter were at the scene tending to other injured occupants of the vehicle.
Defence Minister Mark Burton and the Chief of the Defence Force, Air Marshall Bruce Ferguson, in a statement this afternoon, expressed their "deep regret" at the loss of life and injury.
The Army said it will conduct a full investigation into the accident.
It was the second recent fatality involving army soldiers and a Unimog vehicle on a driver training exercise.
In August last year Private Sean James Dougherty, 29, and Private Daniel Kairua, 22, died on August 11 when their Unimog truck rolled almost 400m off Bossu Rd near Wainui on Banks Peninsula.
A third soldier in the Unimog was badly injured in the crash, which happened in icy conditions.
The crash was the fifth fatal incident involving a defence force Unimog since 1994.
A court of inquiry into the April 2000 death of Staff Sergeant Billy White in a Unimog crash in East Timor recommended the army look at the feasibility of putting roll bars into the trucks.
In October three soldiers, two of them women, were injured when a Unimog truck crashed off the road on the Wairarapa coast.
The three were the only occupants of the Unimog when it went off the road near Wimbledon in the Cape Turnagain area, southeast of Dannevirke.
Late in August a Unimog rolled down a bank on to its roof during an exercise inland from Greymouth. No one was hurt.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3197376a10,00.html
23 February 2005
A soldier was killed today and two others are missing after a New Zealand Army Unimog vehicle left the road and crashed near Queenstown.
Police said the soldier and vehicle were taking part in an army driver training exercise when the Unimog crashed into the Kawarau River early this afternoon at the Roaring Meg power station in the Kawarau Gorge.
Ambulance and a rescue helicopter were at the scene tending to other injured occupants of the vehicle.
Defence Minister Mark Burton and the Chief of the Defence Force, Air Marshall Bruce Ferguson, in a statement this afternoon, expressed their "deep regret" at the loss of life and injury.
The Army said it will conduct a full investigation into the accident.
It was the second recent fatality involving army soldiers and a Unimog vehicle on a driver training exercise.
In August last year Private Sean James Dougherty, 29, and Private Daniel Kairua, 22, died on August 11 when their Unimog truck rolled almost 400m off Bossu Rd near Wainui on Banks Peninsula.
A third soldier in the Unimog was badly injured in the crash, which happened in icy conditions.
The crash was the fifth fatal incident involving a defence force Unimog since 1994.
A court of inquiry into the April 2000 death of Staff Sergeant Billy White in a Unimog crash in East Timor recommended the army look at the feasibility of putting roll bars into the trucks.
In October three soldiers, two of them women, were injured when a Unimog truck crashed off the road on the Wairarapa coast.
The three were the only occupants of the Unimog when it went off the road near Wimbledon in the Cape Turnagain area, southeast of Dannevirke.
Late in August a Unimog rolled down a bank on to its roof during an exercise inland from Greymouth. No one was hurt.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3197376a10,00.html