Plane crash kills heir to an empire

The heir to a property development empire died when his plane clipped a van in which his brother was travelling and burst into flames.

Stacey Hopper, 27, was flying a Cessna 206, a single-engine plane often used for aerobatics, when it crashed at 3.55pm yesterday at the Marsden Cove Marina in One Tree Point, 38 kilometres southeast of Whangarei.

Mr Hopper's younger brother Gray, 24, was one of the three people inside the Volkswagen van the plane hit before it crashed near a private air-strip at the marina.

As Gray Hopper ran toward the wreckage, he had just enough time to call their father Leigh and say: "Stace has had a bad crash. His plane has gone down." He then saw fuel leaking from a broken line and the plane was engulfed in flames.

Family friend and spokesman Paul Shanahan said the Hopper family had no idea what caused the crash that killed the eldest of their three children.

Their first assumption was a mechanical fault in the plane, but there were strong wind gusts at the time, Mr Shanahan said.

Stacey, who was in charge of the marina development for Hopper Developments, was flying home to Auckland in a family plane when he crashed, Mr Shanahan said.

The two other people in the car he clipped were Hopper construction manager Simon Fitzpatrick and his 10-year-old son. Gray Hopper and the Fitzpatricks suffered minor cuts and bruises caused by the van rolling and were treated by ambulance staff at the scene.

Mr Shanahan said the Hopper family had taken the tragedy hard.

"Especially for Gray. To have to watch your older brother perish in such a way is horrifying. You would feel an overwhelming sense of futility," he said.

"It wasn't easy on Simon either. He was torn between his looking out for his son and wanting to help Stacey."

Mr Shanahan said Stacey had a natural talent for anything mechanical. He had been flying since age 18 and gained his private pilot's licence from the North Shore Aero Club two years ago.

He was also an accomplished car driver and was due to race in the Targa Bambina rally around South Auckland today.

His father was grooming him to take over his role as managing director of Hopper Developments, Mr Shanahan said. "He had 27 good years. He lived life to the full – flying was his passion, racing jet skis was his passion, big-game fishing was his passion – you name it he did it."

The Hopper family own Hopper Developments, possibly New Zealand's biggest coastal land development company, which was responsible for big developments at Pauanui and Whitianga in Coromandel. They also own civil engineering company Hopper Construction.