Police are hoping for a break in the weather this afternoon to locate and retrieve the remaining three bodies on Fox Glacier.
Engineering experts are working with Alpine Cliff Rescue to show them the key components of the helicopter in case the wreckage has to be disassembled.
Police say the focus is on finding and rescuing the remaining three victims. They confirmed yesterday the bodies of three females and one male had been retrieved.
Post mortems have been carried out in Christchurch but the victims are yet to be identified.
It will take four to five 10-minute roundtrips by helicopter to complete the rescue mission. Once the wreckage is removed it will be assembled on a designated staging area onsite, before being lifted back down the glacier and taken to Wellington for examination.
Police are confident if there is a reasonable break in the weather, the majority of the rescue mission can be carried out today.
The victims have been named as Australians Leang Sovannmony, 27, and Josephine Gibson, 29, Britons Andrew Virco, 50, Katharine Walker, 51, Nigel Edwin Charlton, 66, and Cynthia Charlton, 70, and Kiwi pilot Mitchell Paul Gameren, 28, from Queenstown
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