What happened
During an aerial topdressing mission on a farm located near Matamata, an aircraft was performing routine distribution of lime and superphosphate. Following a scheduled break to replenish supplies from a delivery truck, the crew proceeded to refuel the plane and prepare for its 14th flight of the day. The aircraft was loaded with what was believed to be 22 hundredweight of fertilizer mixture.
Shortly after takeoff, the loader driver lost visual contact with the plane. While preparing for the next sortie, the driver discovered that the supply truck had stopped on a farm road; upon investigation, the driver realized the aircraft had crashed. The wreckage was located in a gully approximately 250 metres from the terminus of the airstrip. The impact destroyed the aircraft, though no fire occurred at the site. The pilot sustained fatal injuries during the accident.
Evidence from the scene indicated that the plane failed to reach its required takeoff velocity. After a brief period of lift, the aircraft settled back onto the ground, causing the rear fuselage to strike the earth heavily before the plane moved through a fence at the end of the strip in a nose-high orientation. The aircraft then became airborne once more, striking a tree while in a 90-degree right bank, which sent it into a steep dive toward the gully. Weather conditions at the time were characterized by good visibility and light northerly winds.
Findings
Investigations concluded that the aircraft was grossly overloaded, with the center of gravity positioned 28 mm beyond the aft limit. This weight imbalance resulted from approximately 200 kg of residual fertilizer remaining in the hopper from earlier flights, combined with inaccurate readings from the loader's weighing equipment. While both the pilot and the loader driver believed the load was only 22 cwt, the actual weight in the hopper was estimated to be roughly 27.68 cwt.