An Airforce Orion will this morning resume searching for 29 fishermen missing in the Pacific for possibly three weeks.
The plane and crew rested in Samoa overnight after searching one third of a 70 thousand square kilometre stretch of ocean.
The burnt-out vessel, the Ta-Ching 21, was found drifting near the Phoenix Islands in Kiribati, on November the 9th, two weeks after its last radio transmission.
It is believed the 29 crew may have escaped onto three liferafts which were missing from the boat.
A US Airforce plane searched the area last week without success.
The New Zealand crew is warning the search area is large and finding the missing fishermen will not be easy.