Just hours before being fatally struck by a car on a dark highway, 18-year-old Jovaan Graham was urged by her cousin to stay with her in Rotorua.

Boaties have been asked to stay 500m from the site where the plane belonging to 2degrees chief executive Eric Hertz and his wife crashed while divers search for bodies.

Police will decide whether the wreck of the plane belonging to the 2degrees' chief executive Eric Hertz will be recovered from the seabed off the Waikato coast, the Navy says.

A pregnant woman was among those hit when an elderly woman accidentally drove her car into a bank in central Tauranga this morning, witnesses say.

Two people were injured this morning in a four vehicle crash in Tauranga which blocked State Highway 2 near the southern end of Welcome Bay Rd.

The blood-alcohol limit for drivers should be lowered to prevent more unnecessary road deaths, says one of New Zealand's most experienced police officers.

The parents of a forestry worker who was crushed by a falling pine tree fought back tears yesterday as they joined a campaign to improve safety standards in the industry.

It is likely to be Friday at the earliest before exploration can continue at the scene of a fatal plane crash off the Waikato coast.

Plane wreckage, thought to contain the bodies of 2degrees' chief executive Eric Hertz and his wife Kathy, has been found on the sea floor off the Waikato coast.

A Tauranga teen is in a critical condition after sustaining serious head injuries when he fell from his skateboard while street skating in Welcome Bay.

Hannah Eaton was known as the wife of rugby star Chris Eaton, but she had a life of her own as a mum, a part-time model and in the last month, a midwifery graduate.

The official Easter holiday period ended at 6am today with three deaths too many, according to the country's top traffic officer who said the figure "shouldn't be tolerated".

The underwater search for plane wreckage believed to contain the bodies of 2degrees boss Eric Hertz and his wife has turned high-tech with the use of a high-tech torpedo.

The head of a Navy team using sonar to search for aircraft wreckage says it's possible the bodies of 2degrees' boss Eric Hertz and his wife Kathy may never be found.

The bodies of 2degrees chief executive Eric Hertz and his wife, Kathy, who died when their plane ditched off Kawhia on Saturday, may never be recovered.

Rescuers are struggling to reach the bodies of 2degrees' boss Eric Hertz and his wife Kathy believed to be inside the plane wreckage on the sea floor.

A nine-year-old boy was flown to hospital with minor neck injuries after a quad bike incident in a remote part of the South Island's West Coast.

A grieving mother has urged New Zealand authorities to make roll-bars on quadbikes compulsory.

A 50-year-old Warkworth man suffered burns to much of his body after a backyard fire exploded.

A search is underway for two people aboard a twin-engined aircraft that ditched in the sea off Kawhia at around 12.20pm today after reporting engine failure.

Rabbits weren't the only victims during this year's annual 'Great Bunny Hunt', with one of their hunters accidentally shooting himself today.

Three World War 2 reenactors were burned when a gas canister exploded during an airshow in Blenheim last night.

The Easter holiday road toll has risen to two following a fatal crash north of Taupo early today.

The group leader of a Bay of Plenty college's mission trip to Kenya was asleep when a driver-swap put a teen behind the wheel in a minivan crash that killed four people.