On 22 December 1978, a Cessna 188 aircraft, flown by an American private pilot, became lost over the Pacific Ocean.

After several hours of searching, the crew of the commercial flight located the lost Cessna and helped it reach Norfolk Island, where the plane landed safely.

He continued searching; after locating more homing beacons from other islands, he realised his automatic direction finder had malfunctioned and he was now lost somewhere over the Pacific Ocean.

There was only one aircraft in the vicinity, Air New Zealand Flight 103, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10 travelling from Fiji to Auckland.

This data allowed the crew to calculate that the Cessna must be southwest of the DC-10 by about 400 nautical miles (460 mi; 740 km).

Vette wanted all the passengers to be involved, so he asked them to look out of the windows and invited small groups to come to the cockpit.

After some confusion about the exact position of the Penrod, it was finally established that the estimates of the crew of the DC-10 were accurate.

Prochnow reached Norfolk Island and landed after being in the air for twenty-three hours and five minutes.

Contemporary newspaper reports noted that Norfolk Island police were "angered" when Prochnow subsequently departed for Sydney without having the Cessna's direction-finding equipment repaired.

[2] McDonnell Douglas awarded the Air New Zealand crew a certificate of commendation for "the highest standards of compassion, judgment and airmanship.