Teen Selflessly helps a pilot out of plane wreck

Surf lifesaver Ben Magee and his girlfriends Jess Williams, were coming back from breakfast when they heard a loud bang above their heads and saw the two aircraft spiraling to the ground just a 100 meters away from them.

"I got her out of the way and my instinct after that was that there was someone in that plane and I have to try to help them" he said. "I ran through a yard and jumped over a 10-foot high fence and ended up in the front yard of a house on the other side."

Apparently the engine separated from the plane in mid-air and the body and tail of the plane landed in a residential street. When Ben arrived the pilot was still alive hanging upside down from the plane.

Ben asked couple of locals to hose the spilled fuel away while he was helping the pilot. "To be honest, the fuel didn't bother me at all, I just wanted to make sure he was all right and get him ready for the paramedics"

Ben kept talking to the pilot to keep him conscious. He asked him what was his name but there was no answer. Than he sad "If you can hear me, squeeze my hand" and he did. The pilot was still in his harness hanging about 10cm off the ground with his legs out of the plane.

"He was just still hanging so I made sure that his neck was all right and he was moving his head around, and to me it looked like he was all right and I asked one of the residents to get me some ice."

After he was sure that pilot can be moved he asked for a knife. He tried 3 times to cut the seat-belt before finally managed to free the pilot and slowly lower him to the ground. He stayed there and held his hand until the paramedics arrived and flew him to Wellington Hospital in a critical condition. But despite Ben's heroic attempt to save his life pilot died in hospital from his injuries.

I just wish that he could have lived because that really brought me down when I heard he had died."

"I'm not surprised that he didn't think twice about going in to try to help him," his mother Kim Magee said. "If he ever saw someone in that sort of situation, he doesn't think twice about going in to help them.''

There were no reported injuries on the ground, but two men in the helicopter were killed upon crashing.

Local resident Anne Russel said she was watching them fly and thought the aircraft were to close to each another: "Then the left wing of the plane heading west toward the airport clipped the tail of the helicopter that was heading south - broke the wing off the plane which spun to the ground. The chopper seemed to carry on in a straight line for a brief moment, then plummeted straight down to the ground at high speed.

"The scream of the chopper falling will haunt me for a while."