Geoff Perry

This film made by Roger Donaldson of Aardvaark Films in the early 1970s. Geoff Perry was one of New Zealand's leading Motorcycle Racers, who was tragically killed in July 1973 in a plane crash on his way back to the USA riding for Team Suzuki USA. In June 1973, motorcyclist, Geoffrey Leonard Perry had the world at his feet. The 23-year-old Aucklander had just won his first ever AMA national, defeating Kel Carruthers by half a meter at the sinuous Road Atlanta and claiming a new lap record. The Suzuki rider headed back to America for the round at Laguna Seca on 28 July in a buoyant mood. As the on form road racer in the AMA championship, He had won the previous round at Road Atlanta , in Georgia. After a race long battle with Australian Kel Carruthers. Perry always flew Air New Zealand, they were his employer and sponsor. But on this occasion he took an earlier Pan Am flight from Auckland to San Francisco via Tahiti because Air New Zealand had restricted flights due to an imminent atomic test by the French at Mururoa, 1120km south-east of Tahiti. On 22 July 1973, at 10:06pm local time, flight PA 816 took off from Tahiti’s Fa’a’ā International Airport. Thirty seconds after take-off, the Boeing 707 carrying 79 passengers and crew crashed into the sea. There was only one survivor. Geoffs Body ,the voice and flight data recorder were never recovered from the wreckage that lay 800m below the surface.