Lowe Corporation Rescue Helicopter general manager Ian Wilmot said it appeared the vehicles attempted to avoid each other "and they almost slipped side to side".
Napier and Bay View fire services were in attendance, cutting the trapped people free once the two vehicles were separated.
The five people, including two young children, were transported to Hawke's Bay Hospital in two separate rescue helicopters and all have since been discharged, with a 4-year-old girl the last shortly after noon yesterday.
Mr Naylor said pulling apart two trucks was a relatively simple operation compared to an operation on February 16, where the company was called to SH2 south of Hastings to free a car trapped under a large truck in a fatal collision.
A Nissan Cefiro and the deceased driver were wedged under a truck about 1km south of the Pekapeka wetlands.
"We used the overhead gear on our heavy salvage truck and used two winch ropes to pull the car off the truck, then they could cut the side out of the car," Mr Naylor said.
Meanwhile the roof of a red Nissan Bluebird had to be cut off to free its elderly occupant on Saturday afternoon.
The man had hit a tree after he drove into a shelterbelt at the end of Links Road in Waiohiki, opposite the Napier Golf Club.
Emergency services were called to the scene about 2pm, and the Napier Fire Service had to remove the roof of the car to extract the man.
He was taken to Hawke's Bay Hospital in a status two, serious, condition.
