No eyes on Hawke’s Bay airport skies

Hawke’s Bay Airport’s air traffic control tower is empty, leaving planes to take off and land without eyes in the sky.

The tower is operated by Airways, whose spokeswoman Emma Lee said the company had recently reduced its service arrangement for the Napier tower.

She said there was no controller at the tower yesterday morning to accommodate its staffing needs.

There are five controllers who work solo watch shifts in the air traffic control tower, overseeing about 24,000 flights a year.

‘‘Airlines are continuing to operate under prearranged contingency procedures and there has been no disruption to flights.’’

Without air traffic control staff, flights have to get approval from the Civil Aviation Authority to take off and land at the airport.

Lee said the move had ‘‘no im- pact on safety’’ and it was unrelated to an event last Monday, when the tower was left unattended for 21 minutes following a rostering error.

Airways’ changing service model comes amid the company’s plans to introduce digital tower technology, starting with Invercargill in 2020 and a contingency digital tower for Auckland around the same time. Digital towers would allow controllers to direct air traffic from a remote location.

Lee said the technology would extend the hours of air services in more regional locations. ‘‘If we were working in a centralised way, it would be possible to provide a more flexible service.’’

Airways provides air traffic control services from 21 locations around the country, 17 of which are air traffic control towers. As sex offender Nicholas Reekie waits out his open-ended prison term, he has found a way to profit from his complaints.

But one of his wins – $1350 from the Department of Corrections for an inadequate response to an information request – led to an order that he should pay two of his victims $50,000.

Procedural flaws mean the tribunal that made the award has to reconsider the victims’ claims against Reekie. However, a High Court judge’s comments suggest the victims might not do so well next time, with legal limits as to what they can claim for and when.

Reekie was sentenced in August 2004 on charges that included the sexual offences against an 11-year-old girl for which David Dougherty was wrongly convicted and served more than three years’ jail.

But Reekie had other victims and the longest sentence he is now serving is preventive detention, an open-ended jail term, from which he cannot be released on parole for at least 20 years.

In the meantime he has taken dozens of court cases, often against Corrections.

In 2012, Reekie asked Corrections for some documents about himself. According to a recent High Court judgment, what was provided was insufficient so he

‘‘There has been no disruption to flights.’’ Spokeswoman Emma Lee

sought compensation for a breach of the Privacy Act.

In early 2016, he settled the claim for $1350, with Corrections acknowledging it had not managed his request properly.

In a different case that reached court in Wellington on Monday, it emerged that Reekie had settled another claim for $4000.

But under the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Act, the $1350 was to be held to find out if any of Reekie’s victims would make claims against it.

Two did and the Victims’ Special Claims Tribunal said Reekie should pay them $50,000 exemplary damages intended to punish for what was done to