Motions — New Zealand Defence Force—Deaths of Air Force Personnel in Anzac Day Helicopter Crash

I seek leave to move a motion without notice on the tragic helicopter crash that claimed the lives of three Royal New Zealand Air Force personnel on Anzac Day.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that course being followed? There is none.

I move, That this House express its deep sympathy and condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of those lost in the crash of an Air Force Iroquois helicopter on Anzac Day. On Sunday morning, as New Zealanders across the country attended Anzac Day dawn commemorations, three Royal New Zealand Air Force Iroquois helicopters left Ōhākea, bound for Wellington. They were heading south to take part in a fly-past in honour of their fellow servicemen and women on Anzac Day. Sadly, one of the helicopters did not make it. The Iroquois crashed into a hill near Pukerua Bay, leaving three fine servicemen dead and their colleague with serious injuries in hospital.

Flight Lieutenant Hayden Peter Madsen, aged 33, Flying Officer Daniel Stephen Gregory, aged 28, and Corporal Benjamin Andrew Carson, aged 25, were lost. They were young men. They had the world in front of them, but they are now mourned by us all. They were much more than talented helicopter pilots and crew; they were partners and husbands, sons and brothers, and, to their colleagues, they were three good mates.

Since becoming Prime Minister, I have been privileged to have had a glimpse into the family that is the Royal New Zealand Air Force. Only last month I spent time with No. 3 Squadron at Ōhākea, and was impressed with their professionalism, skill, and capability. Their camaraderie was strong. I have been a passenger in Iroquois helicopters flown by those talented people, and I have the utmost respect for their abilities. Muddy, Dan, and Ben were part of that family. If there is a redeeming feature to this tragedy, it is perhaps that those left behind have that tight Royal New Zealand Air Force family to call on for support.

I was in the privileged position of giving the address at Chunuk Bair on Anzac Day, with travelling members of the Royal New Zealand Air Force on hand. As I looked down, I could not help but notice that many of the Air Force men and women had tears streaming down their faces. That showed how deeply personal this loss is for them all, and what a tight family the Royal New Zealand Air Force is. Sergeant Stevin Creeggan can also call on that support as he recovers in hospital after surviving the crash. We wish him all the best for a full recovery, and our thoughts are with him and his family.

This is a chapter in the Royal New Zealand Air Force’s history that we wish had never been written. That the crash occurred on Anzac Day only adds to the pain and sense of loss, and reminds us again of the risks our servicemen and women take every day. Muddy, Dan, and Ben will not be forgotten. They died doing what they loved. I must also add that this tragedy has been felt around the world. While travelling back from Gallipoli, I was touched to receive a message of condolence from Her Majesty the Queen. The Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has also passed on his sympathies.

This is a tough time for the Defence Force. Only yesterday, Private Te Tahuna Tahapeehi died after a road accident outside the Linton military camp, representing the fourth military death in 2 days. We stand alongside the families, friends, and colleagues of those men as they mourn their loss.

I join with the Prime Minister today on this very sad occasion in expressing, on behalf of the New Zealand Labour Party, our sadness at the tragic loss of life of the three Royal New Zealand Air Force personnel from No. 3 Squadron who were killed in the Iroquois crash on Anzac Day. I also record our sorrow at the death yesterday of a young soldier from the neighbouring Linton army base, who was killed in a motorbike accident. To the family and friends of Flight Lieutenant Muddy Madsen, Flying Officer Dan Gregory, Corporal Ben Carson, and Private Te Tahuna Tahapeehi we offer our sincere condolences, and we share in the grief that they will feel at this time.

All were young men with so much ahead of them in life: the prospects of raising a family and of developing promising careers in the New Zealand Defence Force. All four young men had served their country in overseas deployments in East Timor, and in the case of Dan Gregory, in Afghanistan also. We have, as I know from having been a Minister of Defence, a comparatively small Defence Force that is very close-knit. It is like a family. In Ōhākea, and at Linton, and in our military bases across New Zealand and around the world our Defence Force personnel are suffering a sense of shock and loss at the deaths of these men.

Loss of life in any accident is tragic, but the fact that three men lost their lives before dawn on Anzac Day, as they flew from Ōhākea to Wellington for a flyover of the Dawn Parade, makes the loss particularly tragic. For those of us who learnt early in the day of that accident, the playing of the last post on Anzac morning was particularly poignant.

I also express our best wishes for recovery to Sergeant Stevin Creeggan, whose survival in that crash was a miracle.

On this occasion I also note that daily our Defence Force personnel in the course of their duties often put their well-being at risk. We have an obligation to minimise that risk, and I acknowledge and pay tribute to the Royal New Zealand Air Force for the quality of its training and the quality of its aircraft maintenance. We have had the Iroquois for 44 years, and this is only the second occasion on which there has been a crash that has resulted in loss of life.

Once again, to the families of those who have lost their sons we express our sorrow and our condolences in the House today.

The Green Party also wishes to join the leaders in this House in extending our aroha, our sympathy to the friends, whānau, and colleagues of the three aircrew who were killed on Anzac Day. We also extend our deepest sadness on the tragic death of the young man, Private Te Tahuna Tahapeehi, who was killed in an accident outside Linton. I know that the Linton army camp community too is very tight-knit, and this will be a tragic loss for them.

All these young men—Flight Lieutenant Hayden Madsen, Flying Officer Daniel Gregory, Corporal Benjamin Carson, and Private Te Tahuna Tahapeehi—served their country because they believed in and loved our country and wanted to serve its people. All, I understand, had seen active service in East Timor—a time of pride for our country that we assisted there in a peacekeeping way. All of these young men were willing to put their lives at risk for us all because they believed in our country. They were loved and respected, and they will be very sorely missed by their friends and whānau. But their friends, whānau, and colleagues can be very proud of what they achieved in just a few short years. We wish all of their whānau the very best.

We also wish Sergeant Stevin Creeggan a very speedy recovery. Of course, this time will be very bitter-sweet for him and for his whānau, as well.

It is always tragic to lose young men such as these, and it is particularly poignant that we lost three of them on Anzac Day. But the truth is that to lose young men of such potential and of such strength and value, on any day and at any time, is a tragic loss. Kia ora.

I rise on behalf of the ACT Party to mark the passing of three Royal New Zealand Air Force personnel: Flight Lieutenant Muddy Madsen, pilot; Flying Officer Dan Gregory, co-pilot; and Corporal Ben Carson, helicopter crewman, who were tragically killed on Anzac Day. It shall always be that we remember they died on this, our special day of remembrance and commemoration. It is fitting that we remember them. These men volunteered to serve their country and its air force. On that fateful morning they would have risen from their beds early, and proceeded to their duty stations. They carried out their orders, just as the thousands who have served this country before them have done. Their thoughts would have been on doing the best job they could, in remembrance of their forebears.

On Thursday we will farewell these men in the presence of their families and whānau, both personal and air force. Representatives of the wider defence community will be present, along with those who represent this nation. That is also fitting. It will be a sad day, and it will also be a day of remembrance, where we will learn more of their lives and of them as individuals and as a team, members of a squadron. We will learn how they have lived their lives and fulfilled their dreams. We will hear of their love of flying, and of the strength they derived from their comradeship in service, both within the Royal New Zealand Air Force and the New Zealand Defence Force. We will hear of their commitment as servicemen, and we will be reminded that they have all served this country on operational deployments. It is fitting that we remember.

These men will be sorely missed by their friends and colleagues at Ōhākea and more widely in the Royal New Zealand Air Force. Our thoughts are with their families and their loved ones at this time of loss. We also think of their colleague Sergeant Stevin Creeggan, who survived this devastating crash. He was part of the team, part of the squadron. He is facing his own long journey on the road to recovery. Our best wishes are with him, and our thoughts are with his family, whom I met yesterday. They too are greatly affected by this tragedy.

Our thoughts are also with the family, the friends, and the Defence Force colleagues of Private Te Tahuna Tahapeehi, who was tragically killed yesterday at Linton army base.

We join with the other parties in this House in extending our sympathies and our condolences to the families and friends of these four fine, talented, young men. They will be sorely missed.

Every year on 25 April New Zealanders gather and listen to the words of a poem written in 1914 for the fallen. Those words had even more poignant relevance this year:

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,

Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.

They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,

They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

They are the words that will play out in the hearts and memories of the family of Squadron Leader Nick Cree, killed in the line of duty in January this year. They will be words of meaning to the family of Flight Sergeant Andrew Forster, who was killed near Waiōuru 2 months earlier. And today we think of the families of three wonderful young men, staunch to the end against all odds. They are young men who shall not grow old, who are robbed of their potential for a bright future, and whose families are deprived of their loved one who died in the course of his calling to duty.

The Māori Party stands to honour the lives of Flight Lieutenant Hayden Madsen, Flying Officer Daniel Gregory, and Corporal Ben Carson. We express our deepest sympathies to their wives, and to the families they leave behind. We pay a special acknowledgment to the members of the Defence Force, who will be grappling with such heavy grief in their collective loss.

The significance of such a tragic accident occurring on Anzac Day will now become part of the legacy for our nation. The fierce and intense battles fought on Gallipoli in 1915 have always stood as a vivid metaphor for the power of the human spirit. The first major military action fought by the Australian and New Zealand forces during World War I brought to the foreground attributes of great bravery, incredible courage in the face of adversity, tenacity, ingenuity, and powerful forces of loyalty. The cost to New Zealand was 2,721 dead and 4,725 injured—a staggering 88 percent casualty rate. It is a loss that has been sustained over the generations, and has led to what we might now describe as the debt of suffering in which Australia and New Zealand unite to remember the fallen. This year that loss was given a tragic and personal meaning through this extraordinarily bitter blow.

We also acknowledge the passing of Linton army camp Private Te Tahuna Daniel Tahapeehi. Our thoughts also extend to the one surviving crewman, Sergeant Stevin Creeggan, and I am sure we join with all the House in wishing him a full and effective recovery.

We extend our aroha to all the families involved, to the families of all servicemen and servicewomen, to the Defence Force, and to all New Zealanders as we commemorate this devastating loss.

Nā reira haere koutou, haere koutou, haere. Haere ki te okiokinga hei whāriki mā mātou.

[So depart, you who have died, farewell. Go to the resting place and become our mat.]

At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them.

It is sadly customary in the lead-up to Anzac Day each year for there to be inevitable speculation about the day’s continuing relevance to contemporary generations, and speculation about how difficult it is to imagine the conditions and the circumstances with which those who left these shores to fight in the two great world conflicts had to cope. On last Anzac Day morning the crash that occurred at Pukerua Bay and claimed the lives of Flight Lieutenant Hayden Madsen, Flying Officer Daniel Gregory, and Corporal Benjamin Carson, and allowed the miraculous escape of Sergeant Stevin Creeggan, I think gave a relevance to New Zealanders of what the day is all about, and the sacrifice of those who had gone before in so many previous conflicts, and what they had encountered during the course of such conflicts.

We take for granted our freedom today, and that is said often during the Anzac Day commemorations. We also take for granted the presence and the contribution of our armed forces, and the expectation that they will always be there to do their duty. These young men were doing their duty on Sunday morning. They could not have contemplated, as they set off, the circumstances that were about to befall them. Like others, I join with people right across New Zealand in expressing to the families of those young men, to their wider air force family, and to all New Zealanders with a connection to the services a sense of absolute sadness, of deep shock, but of huge admiration for their dedication and their commitment.

As the previous speaker said, age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. We will remember them. We will always remember the sacrifice of those who have done so much to secure the circumstances in which we live today. I simply say to their families and friends that although these times will be difficult, sad, and stressful, there will be long-term consolation for them in knowing the regard in which they were held, the admiration for the service they performed, and the call to dedication and duty that they demonstrated. May they rest in peace.

Motion agreed to.