Parts of Flight 441 that smashed into the side of the Kaimai Ranges more than half a century ago are now on display in a Tauranga museum.
It's been 60 years since the flight crashed, killing 23 people. It remains New Zealand's worst domestic air disaster.
Today, at the foot of the ranges, a group gathered to remember those who died.
The accident occurred not far from where they had gathered.
After a minute's silence, the captain's widow performed a reading.
"I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does the help come," she read.
The 1963 flight was minutes away from landing in Tauranga when it slammed into the rockface.
Miserable weather and a sudden downdraft are believed to be factors in the crash.
"I remember hearing that plane going along that day, and I thought, 'what's a plane doing up there today?'" Maurice Kach, a witness of the crash, said.
Those first on the scene remain scarred by what they saw.
“The sight of the burnt-out plane and the people who had been killed in it... it's burnt into my brain — it's never going to go," search and rescuer David Gauld said.
Today, local trampers made a pilgrimage to the crash site, and at the Classic Flyers Museum in Tauranga, people gathered to see a new memorial.
In 1964, the army blew up the site to stop scavengers from accessing the wreckage. But recently, a group of aviation enthusiasts was given permission to recover an engine and a wheel, which are now an exhibit at the museum.
Julie Baker's boyfriend was onboard. He'd delivered her flowers the day before.
"Carnations and Iris' and they were just special, and I looked at those for a couple of weeks before they finally died. It was a hard time," she said.
There was an honourary flyover today, with the pilots commenting on the parallel weather conditions.
"And we actually said to each other these are not dissimilar conditions to what those poor souls experienced that day," Geoff Cooper said.
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