The captain of TransAsia Flight GE235 complained of "engine abnormalities" but was rebuffed when he asked for an urgent inspection of the plane shortly before its final take-off.

As 85-year-old Stewart Rundle fell more than 30m down a rocky cliff behind his beachfront home he had one thing on his mind - survival.

Minutes after an inferno ripped across a tinder-dry paddock behind her Christchurch home, Julia Walker thought she was going to die.

A young child who died in a crash in the western Bay of Plenty this weekend has been named by police.

A woman died from hypothermia after falling from a cliff and landing on rocks, the coroner has found.

One person was critically injured when a car and a roadworks truck collided on a motorway last night.

One person was critically injured when a car hit a road works truck on the Southern Motorway in Auckland tonight.

An unseen oil spill may have played a part in a crash in which a young child died after a car veered into a power pole and smashed into a paddock.

Four people have died in separate crashes around New Zealand, in a ghastly weekend on the nation's roads.

Emergency services say a small child who was trapped in a car that had hit a power pole south of Tauranga was taken to hospital, but later died.

A child is dead after a car hit a power pole south of Tauranga and a 54-year-old woman died after a car left the road and rolled near Wanaka tonight.

A man is making a remarkable recovery after undergoing surgery to remove bone fragments from his brain - but only a centimetre or so could have made the injury much worse.

The man who died when he stepped in to the path of a truck on State Highway 2 at Te Puna yesterday has been named.

A 24-year-old man killed by a train at an Auckland station was texting friends minutes before he died just metres from his apartment.

A man suffered serious burns to most of his body after the boat he was in burst into flames while he was filling the tank with petrol.

Police have named the man who died in a crash on SH3 near Bulls this morning. He was Shane Edgecombe, 20, of Wanganui.

A pedestrian has died near Tauranga, one man was found dead in his car near Palmerston North and four people were injured in a head-on collision in south Waikato.

A man is trapped in a car and critically injured after a truck and car collided on State Highway 1 south of Whangarei.

A teenage farmhand became an accidental hero after keeping a potentially disastrous scrub fire at bay.

An 85-year-old pensioner who fell 30m from his clifftop property on to rocks had to wriggle out of his pants to reach his cellphone to raise the alarm.

Police say a motorcyclist likely died on impact when he slid into the path of an oncoming van on State Highway 50 yesterday.

A motorcyclist killed in a collision in Hamilton on Friday night has been named by police as local man Wayde Anthony Thomas.

A New Zealander who died in an avalanche in the French Alps was a “remarkable” woman and an accomplished alpinist and skier, colleagues say.

A 61-year-old Israeli tourist would likely have survived the car crash that killed her in 2013 if she had been wearing a seatbelt, a coroner's inquest has found.

A motorcyclist wearing no helmet or shoes is in a critical condition at Hawke's Bay Hospital after crashing into a fence.

An elderly man has been winched to safety after falling 60 metres down a steep bank onto rocks at Castor Bay this afternoon.

A motorcyclist has died this afternoon after colliding with another vehicle in Hawke's Bay.

A woman who asked a depressed friend to leave so she could get some sleep has been told she is not to blame for him fatally crashing his car on the way home.

A 6-year-old Stokes Valley girl died after losing control of her quad bike and hitting a fence, north of Masterton, on Sunday afternoon.