“A plane which was due to return to an Air Force station in the South Island at 11 a.m. yesterday failed to return. In the afternoon a report from a resident of the district stated that he had heard an aircraft labouring overhead, and then an explosion. An immediate search was instituted, and later the aircraft was found. The two occupants wore dead. They were ; Steele, Sergeant Graham Ballantyne : father. Mr J. L Steele, Walton. Waikato. Rickey, Leading-aircraftman Charles Arthur: mother, Mrs F. P. Rickey,  Waipukurau.”

[Evening Star, issue 24335, 26 October 1942, Page 2]