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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