Five years after the Mangatepopo canyoning disaster, some families have been inspired to give while others remain angry at the lack of accountability.

The infant siblings badly burned in a Gisborne car fire are likely to face dozens more operations and many weeks in hospital as they recover.

A prison van that collided with a crane on State Highway 2 is blocking traffic near Katikati.

A Federated Farmers leader has called on a coroner to look into rural suicides instead of concentrating on quad bike deaths.

A man's been taken to Wellington Hospital's emergency department after seriously injuring his leg while felling a tree.

A student pilot was lucky to walk away from an emergency landing on an East Cape beach.

Rugby player Chris Eaton paid an emotional tribute to his wife Hannah at her funeral in Napier, saying words could not describe the love he had for her.

Alicia Kissick was like most young Kiwis heading off on their OE - full of dreams, aspirations and excitement. Then she fractured two vertebrae in her spine.

The family of two children who were severely burned in a car fire in Gisborne last week are maintaining a bedside vigil as the pair continue to fight for their lives in hospital.

UPDATED Police are still searching for a car involved in a hit and run that has left a teenage boy in an Auckland hospital overnight.

The plane that crashed off the coast of Kawhia last Saturday had undergone extensive repairs for damage when it ran off the end of an airstrip a year ago.

A dad was killed while riding in the sidecar of a speedway motorbike driven by his son during a practice run yesterday.

A hero first aider has described the moments he thought a three-year-girl had died after she was pulled from a horrific car fire in Gisborne.

A man has been seriously injured after falling off the back of a ute in the Tasman region early this morning.

There has been a three-car crash north of Wellington this morning, resulting in the death of a cow.

Two pre-schoolers who were trapped in a burning car in Gisborne remain hospitalised in a serious condition.

Family and friends of the mother whose toddlers were badly burnt in a car fire after being left alone have defended her actions.

Just hours before being fatally struck by a car on a dark highway, 18-year-old Jovaan Graham was urged by her cousin to stay with her in Rotorua.

Boaties have been asked to stay 500m from the site where the plane belonging to 2degrees chief executive Eric Hertz and his wife crashed while divers search for bodies.

Police will decide whether the wreck of the plane belonging to the 2degrees' chief executive Eric Hertz will be recovered from the seabed off the Waikato coast, the Navy says.