Alaskan pilot's Kiwi connection

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Pilot Terry Smith, with his wife Terri, after crashing their plane near Hanmer Springs last year. Terry Smith was killed in Alaska this week.

Terry Smith crash-landed this plane near Hanmer Springs last year. He was in another airplane crash this week in Alaska.

Pilot Terry Smith - killed in Alaska this week - penned this message after crashing a plane near Hanmer Springs last year.

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The pilot killed this week in a high-profile Alaskan plane crash, which also claimed the life of an ex US Senator, had survived an earlier crash in New Zealand last year.

Theron 'Terry' Smith, 62, was piloting the DeHavilland DC-3 Otter which crashed near Dillingham, Alaska, at the weekend. The crash made international news because former senator Ted Stevens was killed and former NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe was critically injured. Three other people were also killed in the crash.

Smith was one of Alaska's most experienced pilots, and was no stranger to plane crashes.

Smith and his wife, Terri, crash-landed a Piper Cub airplane in the Waiau riverbed near Hanmer Springs last year. The couple were forced down after oil sprayed over their windscreen and then had to bash their way through gorse for an hour to meet rescuers. They had left a message in the plane wreck to tell searchers that they'd started to walk out.

"That walk was worse than ditching the plane," Mr Smith, a veteran aviator of 40 years, said after the crash.

At the time of the South Island crash, the couple - who often holidayed in New Zealand - said they'd crash-landed aircraft before.

This week's crash in Alaska was especially devastating as Smith's son-in-law was killed less than two weeks earlier in a C-17 crash at Elmendorf Air Force Base, according to the Alaska Dispatch.

Smith was especially experienced flying in Alaska, having worked for Alaskan Airlines for 28 years. The New York Times reported that fellow workers voted him a "Legend of Alaska" in 2001 and he was considered one of the best pilots in the state.

"He was extremely revered," Jim Bridwell, a colleague and close friend of Smith's, told the Alaska Disptach. "He was well-liked; a pilot's pilot."

- © Fairfax NZ News