Seven people died after a helicopter crashed Saturday, November 21, 2015 on the Fox Glacier on the West Coast of New Zealand’s South Island, New Zealand police said.
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Continuing rain and low cloud hindered recovery efforts until a break in the weather late today morning allowed helicopters to take the specialist recovery team to the site of the disaster near the top of the glacier.
“The United Kingdom and Australia have also been invited to appoint a representative due to their nationals having been passengers”, he said.
Mr Northcote said an investigator was able to survey and photograph the wreckage this morning.
Fox Glacier is one of New Zealand’s most popular tourist attractions and attracts thousands of tourists every year.
He says the region has been experiencing a bumper start to the Southern Hemisphere tourist season, but that bad weather was putting pressure on a few tourist operators.
According to Stuff.co.nz, the helicopter crashes in a “heavily crevassed” area.
Three bodies were recovered before the weather closed in again and the operation was halted for the day.
The helicopter belongs to Fox Glacier Heliservices, which also trades as Alpine Adventures.
The parents of four tourists who died in the 2010 crash near Fox Glacier later wrote to prime minister John Key urging him to improve safety measures in the industry.
Authorities are liaising with the Australian and British embassies though formal identification is expected to take a few time.
Reports in New Zealand said Mr Gameren was believed to be an experienced flyer.
We hope to get up there and recover the bodies as soon as we can.
The identities of the pilot and six passengers have not been released and police said the recovery operation and investigation was likely to take days.
“What we need to do is find out what happened and make sure that the checks and balances are in place so people can feel secure”, he said.
“That’s partly because the crash debris is spread over several hundred metres in deep ice crevices”.
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Glacier Country Tourism chairman Rob Jewell confirmed that the no fly zone around the crash site had been extended and that no helicopter companies would run tours today in order to give the recovery helicopters priority.
