the accident site. The aircraft turned through about 270° and was turning through a southwest heading when the collision occurred. The accident interrupted a report the pilot was making to Police Control over the radio. Collision The collision occurred at 5:34:48 pm, near the intersection of Queen Street and Karangahape Road, at an altitude of about 1,400 feet. The left wing of the Archer separated, and the aircraft rolled, dived steeply, and crashed into the elevated carriageway on the Central Motorway Junction between the Northern and Southern Motorways. The wing landed on a church roof. The TwinStar lost the main rotor and transmission, and rear tail boom, vertical stabiliser, and rear rotor. It fell onto the Grafton Road on-ramp to the Northwestern Motorway, under Symonds Street Bridge, and a severe fire broke out, fuelled by 700 litres of kerosene. The main rotor and tail section fell into a cemetery by Karangahape Road. Helicopter debris caused moderate facial burns to the driver of a car, who was taken to Auckland City Hospital. The accident created substantial traffic congestion, which hampered emergency services responding to the scene. A witness at Mount Eden, 1.3 NM south of the site, caught the accident on video (after the collision). Investigation The Transport Accident Investigation Commission was notified of the accident at 6:20 pm, and appointed J J Goddard Investigator in Charge. He began a field investigation later that evening. The wreckage was moved to a storage site prior to inspection, as it was causing a serious obstruction to major public highways. The wreckage inspection found the outboard of the left wing had been cut off the Archer, and found matching damage on one rotor blade of the helicopter, including paint similar to the airplane primer. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration conducted a cockpit field of view survey for the Commission. The relative angular position was plotted on the diagram from each aircraft, for 28 seconds prior to the collision. It showed the helicopter would have been visible to the Archer pilot, appearing for about ten seconds in the lower centre windscreen, before being obscured by the engine nose around 18 seconds before the accident. The diagram also showed the low position of the sun may have affected the pilot's ability to see the helicopter. For the TwinStar pilot, the aeroplane would have been visible only for a few seconds in the top left corner of