On the day of his death, Aitchison left his workplace at Central Machine Hire about 5.30pm in his white Toyota Corolla and headed home. The distance between the boy’s work and the scene of the crash was just over 3 kilometres and would have taken roughly four minutes to travel, an inquest heard. About 5.40pm, a motorist driving along Ballantyne Rd towards Wānaka noticed an upside-down Toyota Corolla between two poplar trees on the right side of the road. Initially he thought the car had probably been there for some time but then he noticed steam coming from the bonnet.