A witness has described hearing a balloon pilot tell passengers to "duck down" before screams of panic were heard from the basket.

A man who worked with the pilot found to have cannabis in his system after his hot air balloon crashed in Carterton, killing 10, had no idea he smoked cannabis.

The daughter of a couple who died in the Carterton balloon tragedy has told a Coronial inquest of watching the balloon catch fire before it plummeted to the ground.

More than two years after a ballooning accident claimed the lives of their loved ones, relatives are reliving the details of the ill-fated day at a coroner's inquest.

A gruelling week lies ahead for families of the Carterton hot air balloon crash victims as they again hear evidence of how their loved ones died.

The wife of a New Zealander missing on Malaysia Airlines MH370 is spearheading a new victims' group pushing authorities to "share and release" information about the ill-fated flight

Mr Monk, whose son Michael was among the 29 miners killed in the Pike River explosion, was reflecting on the agony expressed by Danica Weeks over the fate of her husband Paul, a passenger on missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

Two Westland families are reeling after the death of two close friends in a helicopter crash.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott was to update China's President Xi Jinping on the latest developments in the hunt for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 before he left Beijing last night.

A search is underway for the two occupants of a crashed helicopter on the West Coast.

A final unexplained signal emitted by the missing Malaysia Airlines plane was tracked to the same point in the Indian Ocean at which authorities believe they have found the jet, it can be revealed.

Flight 370 may have been "purposely" flown around Indonesian airspace on its way to the southern Indian Ocean to avoid radar detection, a government source has claimed.

Malaysia's Government is deliberately concealing information that would help explain what happened to missing flight MH370, the country's Opposition Leader has claimed.

A crisis management expert has defended Malaysia Airlines' decision to send news about missing flight MH370 to relatives of crew and passengers via text message.

Malaysia Airlines is introducing new security measures - including an extra crew member inside the cockpit - following the disappearance of Flight MH370.

The search for missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 off Western Australia could take years, a senior US Navy official said.

When Danica Weeks first heard that the Malaysia Airlines flight her husband Paul was on was missing.

Objects seen by a RNZAF crew may have no connection to MH370, but the head of NZ's Joint Forces says staff are getting good results from 'difficult and demanding' work.

For the relatives of the 239 passengers and crew, the failure to retrieve a single piece of debris to date is excruciating.

Search teams were last night scouring the area where a Royal New Zealand Air Force Orion made a potentially crucial breakthrough in the hunt for the missing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370.

The search for the missing Malaysian airliner could be hindered by deteriorating weather later today

More details are expected to emerge today about items spotted by an RNZAF Orion searching for the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370.

An Air Force Iroquois helicopter will resume the search this morning for an Auckland man's missing biplane.

New Zealand pilots have been permanently grounded after testing revealed concerns about their medical fitness to fly, with some suspended because of depression, the aviation regulator has confirmed.

Bad weather has forced searchers for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 to suspend operations for the day, for the second time this week.