A young woman whose car crashed "head first" down a 60m bank before flipping managed to crawl out of the vehicle and phone emergency services and family.

The 19-year-old Australian visitor to Queenstown who fell from a hotel balcony remains in a serious condition in Dunedin Hospital, police say.

A young West Auckland plumber has been sentenced to almost two years in prison after the deaths of two of his friends while he was driving drunk last year.

A woman who died in a mid-air collision had noticed flaws in the aviation industry and was trying to make changes, according to her father.

Survivor of the Anzac Day helicopter crash Sergeant Stevin Creeggan has endured years of pain and humiliating treatment from the Air Force, but his family are speaking out.

A kayaker who drowned in a New Zealand river at the weekend was pictured in front of the raging water just hours before he lost his life.

New Zealand wakeboarder Brad Smeele has suffered a setback since his serious accident almost two weeks ago.

Two families will never be the same again. Shane Summerfield lost his wife, Sally, and his 12-year-old daughter, Ella; Sam Summerfield lost his mother and his little sister.

Black ice has caused several crashed on State Highway 5 this morning, with parts of central North Island experiencing temperatures well below zero.

A person has died after a motorbike crash north of Auckland.

One person was taken to hospital in a critical condition after a crash on Auckland's Tamaki Drive this morning.

New Zealand journalist Alexi O'Brien this morning described the scene as horrendous. O'Brien is in the Ukraine for Al Jazeera.

Tensions are ramping up between two global super powers after a Malaysia Airlines passenger flight was shot down over Ukraine.

Scenes of horror, with crumpled corpses and body parts strewn amid the smouldering wreckage, greeted local villagers and pro-Russian rebels who were first on the crash site.

"We have every expectation our son will be getting off a plane in Wellington tomorrow," says Wendy Ayley, mother of Otaki man Robert Ayley, who was on flight MH17.

A fate as horrific as that of the 298 people on board Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 invites a thorough rethinking of a number of cherished notions.

Crash victim Shane Summerfield has been in “unbearable pain” since losing half his family, he told a court today.

Shane Summerfield is still "miles away" from being able to speak about the crash in which a Dutch driver ran a stop sign and killed his wife and daughter.

A special forces soldier who tumbled to his death on NZ's deadliest mountain yesterday was "unlucky", as snow and ice gave way to a deep crevasse, a rescuer says.

A Napier truck driver negotiating the steep Otira Viaduct for the first time probably experienced brake failure, a coroner has ruled.

Just over two months ago, a battered Phoenix Ruddell lay in an induced coma at Starship Hospital with injuries so serious that doctors expected a long road back to recovery.

Motocross rider Todd Mullinder is alive today because he had emergency surgery on the back of a ute.

A 28-year-old mother swept to her death in a flood-swollen Bay of Islands river screamed for five minutes as she clung to a fence but the raging waters pulled her under.

In the aftermath of the tragic death of Jordan Kemp, we examine the way parents are increasingly turning their back on rugby to keep their children safe.

An inquest in Gloucester has heard how a plane crash that killed a British pilot in the Congo may have been caused by passengers panicking over an escaped crocodile.