Chrisjan Jordaan and Alexis Still before the flight. FILE
If anything could come from his daughter's death, Allan Still hopes it is mandatory and random drug testing of pilots.
Eleven people lost their lives on January 7, 2012, when the hot air balloon they were in hit power lines, caught fire and crashed into a field near Carterton in Wairarapa.
Mr Still's 20-year-old daughter Alexis, a former Rotorua Lakes High School student, died alongside her boyfriend Chrisjan Jordaan, 21, after they leapt from the balloon.
A two-week inquest was held in Wellington last year and today Coroner Peter Ryan publicly released his findings, which included 19 recommendations.
One of these recommendations called on the Ministry of Transport to make an amendment to the Civil Aviation Act, which would enable the CAA and police to undertake random drug testing.
Mr Still told the Rotorua Daily Post the release of the coroner's report marked "the end of a phase" but it wouldn't be the end of the battle.
"As a family we are pretty pleased with the recommendations," Mr Still said.
"Coroner Ryan has, overall, done a pretty good job. He's included a lot of things we were concerned about, such as mandatory and random drug testing. There's no legislation in place currently to prevent it happening again and that's what is driving us now. This is just the end of a phase.
"What we want to see is these recommendations picked up by the right people and preferably enacted in legislation so we can make sure this doesn't happen again."
He said the favoured outcome from the tragedy was that New Zealand ended up with a safer adventure tourism industry.
Traces of cannabis were found in pilot Lance Hopping's system during his post mortem.
In his findings Coroner Ryan said based on the evidence given by toxicologists at the inquest, the level of THC in Mr Hopping's body at the time of his post mortem could not be safely relied upon as proving that he smoked cannabis within a few hours of the flight.
He also said while there was a chance Mr Hopping was affected during the flight from the "carry-over" effect of cannabis use, there was "insufficient evidence" to make it a finding.
Mr Still said it had been a difficult three years.
"It's been awful, hard, horrible and difficult. Along the way we've had to deal with all of life's pressures that everyone else has.
"We've two other children to focus on and do the best we can. We do wonder if we're neglecting the others. It's a powerful emotion, grief. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. It's tough but you learn something about yourself.
Coroner Ryan said in his findings that as an "experienced and competent balloon pilot" Mr Hopping's decisions on the day of the crash "seem to be inexplicable".
"... the pilot failed in his duty to fly the balloon in such a way as to prevent the balloon coming into contact with the power lines."
Sarah Scarlett, the daughter of victim Howard Cox, 71, and step-daughter of Diana Cox, 63, agreed with Mr Still.
Ms Scarlett said she would now like to see the "key people" take Coroner Ryan's recommendations on board, so appropriate changes could be made to the law.
She said she believed random drug testing would have "knocked" Mr Hopping "out of the game".
Coroner Ryan also recommended the CAA make pilots' credentials available to to the public.
Ms Scarlett said the easier it was for people to be able to check credentials in the adventure tourism industry - the better.
"You go into a restaurant and you see their certificate of hygiene, you go in a taxi and you see this person is registered. We need to be able to have a transparent system."
Director of Civil Aviation, Graeme Harris, said all adventure aviation operations, including those in commercial hot air ballooning, were required to comply with Civil Aviation Rule Part 115, which required operators to have a drug and alcohol programme acceptable to the CAA in place.
Unfortunately Part 115 had not been implemented at the time of the Carterton tragedy.
As part of this programme operators were allowed to employ a third party and request a drug test if they had reasonable cause to suspect a staff member could be under the influence, or post incident - if an accident or incident occurred.
Operators were also allowed to undertake pre-employment drug testing and random drug testing.
In order for random drug testing to be carried out under the Civil Aviation Act, as recommended by Coroner Ryan, legislation would have to change.
"We are encouraged that the Ministry of Transport is currently consulting on options for stronger measures to reducing the risk of alcohol and drug impairment in aviation and other modes of transport such as rail," Mr Harris said.
He said the CAA and the hot air ballooning community had been working hard since to improve aviation safety.
"The introduction of Civil Aviation Rule Part 115 has brought a much higher level of safety to this sector and we are pleased that the hot air balloon community are embracing this rule, and in many cases have bought in systems and processes that are more stringent than what is required."
THE VICTIMS:
Valerie Bennett, 70, Diana Cox, 63, Howard Cox, 71, Ann Dean, 65, Desmond Dean, 70, Denise Dellabarca, 58, Belinda Harter, 49, Stephen Hopkirk, 50, Lance Hopping, 53, Chrisjan Jordaan, 21, and Alexis Still, 20.