The men are among 19 people killed in mast-bumping crashes in Robinson helicopters in New Zealand. Mast-bumping, sometimes called rotor blade divergence, occurs when an inner part of the main rotor mechanism hits the main rotor drive shaft. Pilots have less than a second to react before the blades slice through the cabin, causing the chopper to break up in flight. It can happen in any helicopter, usually in turbulent or low-gravity conditions, but in Robinsons it is almost always fatal.
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The wreckage of the helicopter crash that killed Stephen Anthony Nicholson Combe, 42, of Wānaka, and James Louis Patterson Gardner, 18, of Queenstown.
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Some descriptions at the hearing included “not fit for purpose”, “discriminatory”, “threatening” and “totally unreasonable”. Many felt that plans to tighten regulation around fundamental farm activities such as fencing, maintaining roads and clearing shrub would make farming difficult, bureaucratic and financially marginal.
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Three generations of Mt Nicholas Station managers, Kate Cocks, Linda Butson and Jess Cocks, 11, at an environment select committee submissions hearing on the Crown Pastoral Land Reform Bill, in Queenstown. They see it as an attempt by the Crown to slowly reclaim the land, ignoring their years of custodianship and not recognising that the high country farmers are knowledgable and proud guardians.