Search called off for British backpacker

The search for a British backpacker missing in New Zealand for a week has been called to a halt, police said.

Rescue helicopters had been scouring a mountainous area of New Zealand's South Island after the helicopter in which 28-year-old Hannah Timings and pilot Campbell Montgomerie were flying lost contact with air traffic controllers last Saturday morning.

It is feared Ms Timings, from Cheltenham, and Mr Montgomerie, from Hamilton, New Zealand, fatally crashed in poor weather between Queenstown and Milford Sound in the Fiordland National Park.

Cloudy weather frustrated search efforts by rescue teams and police in Te Anau today said that the search has now been suspended pending further information.

A statement by Senior Sergeant Olaf Jensen: "At the conclusion of day seven in the search for the missing Hughes 500 helicopter missing in Fiordland since 3 January the National Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Wellington have suspended the search.

"It must now presumed that the pilot Campbell Montgomerie aged 27 years from Hamilton and his passenger Hannah Rose Timings aged 28 years from Cheltenham, England, are dead.

"Two police staff remain at the forward search base in Te Anau to respond to any further information which may require a renewed search."

He said the helicopter's disappearance and resulting search would now be subject of coroner's inquiry.

Rescuers spent 204 flying hours and 2,300 man hours searching the mountainous area where the four-seater privately-owned helicopter was lost.

Bryan Nicholson, a spokesman for the British High Commission in New Zealand, said earlier in the week that trying to find them really was like trying to find "a needle in a haystack".

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