It will be a long night for four members of the recovery team working at the Fox Glacier helicopter crash site after stormy weather has left them stranded at a hut on the glacier.
Attempts to recover the remaining three bodies were cut short today after stormy weather closed in.
The recovery operation after Saturday's Alpine Adventures helicopter crash, which killed seven, will enter its fifth day tomorrow.
A team of 12 made it to the crash site this afternoon, where drone footage was captured and ice was levelled out to create a platform for crews to work from.
But then the weather closed in, leaving a team of four stranded on the site.
The four members of the Police Disaster Victim Identification team will stay at a hut on the glacier overnight.
Sergeant Sean Judd told media that, although it was not part of the plan, having staff on the glacier was not necessarily a bad thing.
"Having them close by, ready to go ... should the weather allow us to get up there even for a short time, well that cuts down our preparation time and means we can spend more time on site," he said.
"What we did [today] was establish the landing sites, that's quite important. We need a good staging area near to the site so we were able to get that done today. From there we started to secure some fixed lines into the site."
It is hoped the weather will clear for long enough on Thursday to retrieve the bodies.
Transport Accident Investigation Commission (TAIC) spokesperson Peter Northcote said it was still a long way from finding out what caused the crash.
"We're still very much in the process of needing to collect our evidence. The wreckage of the aircraft is still on the glacier. We would hope to recover as much of that as possible."
Police search and rescue staff, together with Aoraki-Mt Cook and Fox Glacier alpine rescue crews, have been working to recovery the remaining bodies from Fox Glacier since Saturday's crash.
The crews returned shortly after 11am today to resume the recovery operation but were on the glacier for less than an hour before weather closed in, police said.
Recovery crews remain on standby at Fox Glacier Village to resume as soon as possible tomorrow.
- by NZME and Newstalk ZB
