On 7 January 2012, a scenic hot air balloon flight from Carterton, New Zealand, collided with a high voltage power line while attempting to land, causing it to catch fire, disintegrate and crash just north of the town, killing all eleven people (ten passengers and the pilot) on board. The crash was the deadliest air disaster to occur in mainland New Zealand since the July 1963 crash of New Zealand National Airways Corporation flight 441 in the Kaimai Ranges and the deadliest crash involving a New Zealand aircraft since the November 1979 crash of Air New Zealand flight 901 into Mount Erebus. As of January 2015 it is the third-deadliest hot air balloon disaster on record after a 2013 balloon crash in Egypt that killed 19 people and the 1989 balloon crash in the Northern Territory, Australia that killed 13.
In January 2016 a memorial to the victims of the balloon crash was unveiled near the site of the tradegy.