An 11-year-old boy has been found drowned in a river mouth in Northland.
It is understood search and rescue teams had been searching for half an hour this afternoon when the body was found at the Waipu river mouth about 2.30pm.
Northland Emergency Services Trust said its helicopter had joined the search at 2.10 shortly after the alarm was raised.
Paramedic Scott Mears said the helicopter responded to a call for two potential patients in the water.
They arrived to find one 11-year-old boy but were not able to resuscitate him.
Police said the two children had been caught in a rip at the mouth of the river but by the time rescue teams reached them one child aged 11 had drowned while a seven-year-old boy was found safe.
Relatives had pulled the boys from the water.
Fairfax videographer Sean Willis was onboard the Northland Emergency Services Helicopter when the alarm was raised.
He said paramedics were airlifted to the river mouth where members of the public were performing CPR on the boy who was found in knee-deep water.
A Four Square employee told Stuff.co.nz the river was popular with fisherman but wasn't normally a hot spot for swimmers.
The boy's death is the eighth drowning since Christmas.
PLANE FOUND SAFE
Emergency services were busy in the Ruakaka-Waipu area this afternoon after search and rescue teams had to split their time between the drowning and a missing aircraft.
A microlight plane that was reportedly having problems getting up in the air and then seen "spiralling" to the ground at Ruakaka beach was later found safe.
Fisherman Rex Anderson was setting a line out on the beach when he saw the microlight trying to take off from the beach at 1.30pm.
He said it seemed to be having trouble getting off the ground, and at one point had to veer off to avoid hitting beach goers.
"A couple of people were concerned and rang the police. They were concerned about the way he was flying. They didn't know if he was having engine problems or playing silly buggers."
Anderson said the plane sounded like it was stalling before it disappeared over sand dunes.
He said police had arrived very quickly and commandeered his van to search for the microlight which was found safe about 2.40pm.
Police later said they had located the pilot of a small plane.
The gyrocopter had been flying up and down between the sand dunes, which could have caused the impression that it had crashed, police said.
The small plane was found safe at Whangarei Airport.
Source: Stuff.co.nz
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