The plane wreckage lies in a swamp at the end of the runway. Pictures: Guria Kapi / Papua New Guinea Post-Courier Source: Supplied

The black box is recovered from the wreckage. PNG police officers said they couldn't get to the plane because of the heat Source: Supplied

Crash victim Chris Hart and his wife Hilary Hart in June this year / Supplied Source: Supplied

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Crash victim Les Wright was also involved in the 2005 Lockhart river crash, which killed 15 people. Picture: PatrickHamilton Source: The Courier-Mail

As the sole survivor of Tuesday's Trans Air PNG crash was evacuated to Australia yesterday, it was revealed that one of the dead was Les Wright, a pilot who had been criticised for failing to supervise crew in one of Australia's worst air disasters.

Mr Wright, who was the co-owner of Port Moresby-based Trans Air, was chief pilot of the now-defunct Transair company involved in the deadly Lockhart River plane crash in 2005, The Australian reported.

Among the others killed on Tuesday when the plane overshot the runway on Misima Island in PNG's Milne Bay were Chris Hart, 61, from Sydney, and Darren Moore, 44, from Leonora in Western Australia, who was a PNG civil aviation flight operations inspector.

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The fourth victim, an employee of medivac company International SOS, was a New Zealander.

The survivor, an unnamed 25-year-old New Zealander who was co-pilot of the Cessna Citation, has been taken to an Australian hospital for medical treatment for "heavy bruising".

Witnesses said the twin-engined Trans Air Cessna jet overshot the runway, skidded into palm trees and caught fire during heavy rain and poor visibility.

PNG requested assistance late yesterday from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which will today send over a team of three investigators. The plane's black box has been recovered.

On the ground in Misima, police officer Sergeant Dick Wadnawi described the moment he saw the plane land "almost at the end of the airstrip".

"It went off into the palm trees and burst into flames," he told The Australian.

Sergeant Wadnawi said the watching police officers did not have access to firefighting equipment, so could only watch the plane burn from afar.

"We couldn't get close because of the heat and we were scared of the explosions and the smoke," he said. "If we had (firefighting equipment), we could have got closer."

Civil Aviation Authority of Papua New Guinea director Wilson Sagati refused to answer questions about the lack of firefighting equipment.

A pilot with extensive aviation industry experience in Australia and PNG told The Australian it would be financially impossible to have firefighting equipment at every airstrip in any country, including PNG and Australia.

"In theory, it would be great to have it at any aerodrome, but even Australia couldn't afford it," the pilot said.

He said the runway at Misima was fairly short, made of crushed coral and very hard.

Tributes flowed yesterday for the men killed in the crash.

Australian Reef Pilots chairman Don McLay said 61-year-old Richard Christopher Hart, who had first gone to sea at the age of 13, had been responsible for guiding ships through the Great Barrier Reef, and had been on his way to board a ship to shepherd it through the reef.

"He saw coastal pilots as guardians of the reef," Mr McLay said.

Additional reporting: Mark Dodd, Sallie Don and AAP