Two saved as plane ploughs into main road

Two people were pulled to safety from the burning wreckage of a light aircraft that crash-landed on a main road and burst into flames in northern New Zealand today.

The plane came down near the town of Taupo on New Zealand’s North Island. Residents pulled the victims from the burning wreckage and cooled them off in a lake about yards from the crash site.

Alex Scott said: “They were bathed there for their burns by locals until the ambulance … arrived, which was quite lucky for them,” he told National Radio, adding that it looked as though the plane “hit the road, veered off to the left and struck a resident’s property”.

There was no word of any casualties on the ground.

Authorities were investigating the crash, police Senior Sgt Tony Jerassin said. It was difficult to determine the type of plane because of a fire that destroyed the aircraft and gave off a lot of toxic fumes.

“It’s disintegrated,” he told National Radio.

Scott said he was driving up the road when he saw “a column of quite dark, acrid smoke coming over the tree tops” and then rounded a corner to see the plane apparently just after it crashed and burst into flames.

“Things started sizzling and exploding,” he said.

The two injured people were flown by helicopter to a hospital in Taupo, a tourism and farming town about 240 miles north of the capital, Wellington.