‘The greatest role model’: Family mourns pilot presumed dead

THE daughter of a man who is presumed dead after crashing a light plane in the Southern Alps is still trying to get home to be with her family after three days of trying.

Well-known West Coast man, Tim Gibb, crashed his light plane in the Southern Alps on

Thursday.

Gibb left Franz Josef about 9am on Thursday, destined for Rangiora. The downed plane was found by a rescue helicopter near Mt Nicholson on Thursday

afternoon, but plans to get to the plane were put on hold due to bad weather.

His daughter Sarah Gibb said it was all ‘‘very surreal’’.

She was at sea on a boat in

Makarska, Croatia, when she received the news her dad had been in the crash.

‘‘I went into shock and felt like I had detached from my body, words were coming out of my mouth, but they didn’t feel like my own,’’ she said.

Gibb famously brought in equipment to ferry cars and people across the Waiho River when the bridge was washed away in 2019. He ferried up to 30 cars and 100 people a day across the river using a 38-tonne dump truck.

Sarah tried for three days to get home when she got the news. She has another three days of travel ahead, but has found some flights through India.

Sarah described her dad as humble, hardworking, patient and kind.

‘‘[He was] the greatest role model a child could ask for. I am so grateful and lucky that I got to call [him] my father and I will always cherish the years we had.’’

A police spokesperson said they are working with Department of Conservation Aoraki Mount Cook alpine rescue team to plan a recovery operation to the light plane.