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A gun charge has been laid after a fatal Auckland motorway crash involving Naval ratings.
Two men and one woman face charges including pointing a firearm at another person after a ute and four-wheel-drive collided on the Northwestern Motorway in January.
One of the men is a former rating who quit the Navy in March to take up a building career.
The charged were among eight sailors returning to the city centre in the two vehicles after visiting a friend's house in west Auckland.
No other vehicles were involved in the crash near the Pt Chevalier off-ramp on January 26.
An 18-year-old sailor, who was a front-seat passenger in the ute, was found dead at the scene. Two others suffered minor injuries and were treated at Auckland City Hospital.
Waitemata police serious crash unit head Sergeant Stu Kearns told the Herald on Sunday one person had been charged with driving causing death and injury, and another with failing to render assistance. The third has been charged with aiming a firearm, a BB gun, at another person.
Kearns refused to elaborate on the allegations for fear of jeopardising the court case. At the time of his unit's investigation into the accident, he would not be drawn on whether alcohol was a factor.
Navy spokesman Commander Dean McDougall said officers had received a full briefing from police and were backing the sailors for the moment. "Neither have been stood down. They're innocent and we'll wait for the courts to decide."
The dead sailor was set to start on-the-job training before the crash, and the others were completing basic naval training.
It's not the first high-profile crash involving Navy personnel.
Navy chef Jasmine Bastion, 23, was killed in the early hours of March 3 last year when the high-powered car she was a passenger in spun out of control and crashed into a concrete wall near the Naval base in Auckland's Devonport.
A 19-year-old Naval rating was driving but walked away with barely a scratch. Two other recruits survived after being cut.
Cheap drinks at Devonport's Naval base followed by more liquor at popular watering hole Wild Bill's were thought to have led to the tragic crash.
Police also believe alcohol was a factor in an alleged rape at the base last November. Two junior ratings were each charged with three offences, including rape and sexual violation.
The three people charged in relation to January's crash will appear at Auckland District Court next month.
