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Authorities are concerned a manufacturing defect making the blades prone to cracking, could lead to loss of control of the chopper.

The men are among 19 people killed in mast-bumping crashes in Robinson helicopters in New Zealand. Mast-bumping, sometimes called rotor blade divergence, occurs when an inner part of the main rotor mechanism hits the main rotor drive shaft. Pilots have less than a second to react before the blades slice through the cabin, causing the chopper to break up in flight. It can happen in any helicopter, usually in turbulent or low-gravity conditions, but in Robinsons it is almost always fatal. Supplied The wreckage of the helicopter crash that killed Stephen Anthony Nicholson Combe, 42, of Wān...

“It was as if he had stepped out of the wreckage, taken some steps and then lay down on the ground,” she told Coroner Alexandra Cunninghame during an inquest in Queenstown on Wednesday. James Patterson Gardner had been on a training flight in February 2015 with Over The Top instructor Stephen Anthony Combe, 42, of Wānaka. RADIO NEW ZEALAND As two more people die in a Robinson helicopter crash, a US lawyer representing crash victims and families labels the helicopter "unsafe and unairworthy". (Video first published in November, 2016). In 2016, a Transport Accident Investigation Commiss...

James Patterson Gardner and Stephen Combe were the 17th and 18th people killed in Robinson helicopter crashes in New Zealand. More have died since.