Safe Air Flight Crew (Kaikoura Incident)

Commercial Cargo Pilots

The Safe Air cargo flight involved in the famous 1978 Kaikōura Lights UFO incident was crewed by Captain Bill Startup and First Officer Bob Guard. Onboard as passengers were an Australian television crew from Melbourne's Channel 0, which included reporter Quentin Fogarty, freelance cameraman David Crockett, and his wife, Ngaire.

The cargo flight was a routine newspaper run flying south from Wellington to Christchurch on the night of December 30, 1978. While crossing the Kaikōura mountain range, the crew spotted a series of strange, bright glowing lights that tracked, paced, and maneuvered around their Argosy aircraft.

These encounters were simultaneously tracked by Wellington air traffic control radar and captured on 16mm color film by the Australian news team. The incident remains one of the most credible and heavily documented UFO cases in history