A fishing trawler off New Zealand netted the wreckage of a light plane with a body on board early today, police said.

The trawler was fishing off the coast of Great Barrier Island, 100 kilometres north-east of Auckland, when the fishermen hauled in their nets and discovered they had fished up the plane.

Police and harbour staff were headed to the site today with specialist lifting equipment to recover the aircraft and bring it back to Auckland.

The only plane missing in the area in recent times was that of Auckland man Daroish Kraidy who disappeared after taking off from nearby Ardmore Airport in his home-built aerobatic biplane on March 25, the Rescue Coordination Centre said.

His family told the Fairfax news service in May that they feared Kraidy, who had been suffering from depression and was a former jet pilot for the South African Air Force, may have deliberately flown out to sea in a copycat flight mirroring that of missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 which disappeared on March 8.

The Rescue Coordination Centre suspended the search for Kraidy and his plane on April 1.

- dpa