{"id":263605,"date":"2026-02-02T07:18:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T07:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/263605\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T07:18:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T07:18:08","slug":"police-name-victims-of-paekakariki-hill-helicopter-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/263605\/","title":{"rendered":"Police name victims of Paek\u0101k\u0101riki Hill helicopter crash"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"nQBCzZDznEEEs\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cThe response demonstrated the strength of our interagency partnerships and the shared commitment to supporting one another and the community in difficult circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img  alt=\"Rescue choppers searched in the Paek\u0101k\u0101riki Hill area for the downed craft. Image \/ Flight Radar\" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/>Rescue choppers searched in the Paek\u0101k\u0101riki Hill area for the downed craft. Image \/ Flight Radar<\/p>\n<p class=\"nQBCzZDznEEEs\" style=\"display:none\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/nz\/wellington-helicopter-crash-police-recover-two-bodies-from-paekakariki-hill-area\/HBMTN2N665EY5ORLIKCDM7MFV4\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/nz\/wellington-helicopter-crash-police-recover-two-bodies-from-paekakariki-hill-area\/HBMTN2N665EY5ORLIKCDM7MFV4\/\">MP for \u014ctaki and ex-Air Force helicopter pilot Tim Costley earlier told the Herald<\/a> he was \u201creally sad\u201d to hear about the \u201ctragic\u201d crash.<\/p>\n<p class=\"nQBCzZDznEEEs\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cI know that first responders, including two rescue helicopters, did everything they could to try and save lives and fight for a better outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"nQBCzZDznEEEs\" style=\"display:none\">He said this outcome would be \u201cgutting for them\u201d as well as people from the Rescue Co-ordination Centre, CAA and the Greater Wellington Regional Council involved.<\/p>\n<p class=\"nQBCzZDznEEEs\" style=\"display:none\">Costley said members of the public should respect the cordons in place at Battle Hill campground and people who work in the area.<\/p>\n<p class=\"nQBCzZDznEEEs\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cLet\u2019s keep the families first and foremost in our thoughts at this really sad time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"nQBCzZDznEEEs\" style=\"display:none\">His experience as a pilot meant that once he found out about the crash, it sent his mind wandering.<\/p>\n<p class=\"nQBCzZDznEEEs\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cYou look out at the window at what the weather conditions are and then you think, \u2018Well, what could have caused this?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"nQBCzZDznEEEs\" style=\"display:none\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/nz\/the-daily-h-your-fast-smart-guide-to-the-days-biggest-headlines\/VQR5CULLQRECZP2ORSWPGDORBU\/?utm_source=nzherald&amp;utm_medium=article&amp;utm_id=nz_cta\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/nz\/the-daily-h-your-fast-smart-guide-to-the-days-biggest-headlines\/VQR5CULLQRECZP2ORSWPGDORBU\/?utm_source=nzherald&amp;utm_medium=article&amp;utm_id=nz_cta\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe response demonstrated the strength of our interagency partnerships and the shared commitment to supporting one another and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254859,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[12635,1558,3549,305,42,47065,31037,3375,685,13617,10136,3180,43,1118,147339,384,675,40,38,41,39,8844,686,52],"class_list":["post-263605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-area","tag-been","tag-crash","tag-have","tag-headlines","tag-helicopter","tag-hill","tag-killed","tag-last","tag-name","tag-named","tag-near","tag-news","tag-of","tag-paekkriki","tag-people","tag-police","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-victims","tag-week","tag-wellington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}