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schwartz: martyn stacey has also been campaigning for tighter controls on adventure tour operators. schwartz: ballooning may appear to be the gentlest of extreme sports but this is a four tonne aircraft with more power than many a light plane and no brakes. a pilot can take the craft up or down but direction is determined by the wind. martyn stacey: "it's a magical experience flying balloons and at different altitudes you get different wind directions and that's how you can control your balloon". schwartz: reading the weather correctly and erring on the side of caution is critical. martyn stacey: "i have one rule in ballooning, my rule is i'd rather be on the ground wishing i'm in the air than in the air wishing i'm on the ground". schwartz: there was a balloon that went into the top of trees. is that something which happens to everybody at some stage because of freak gusts?"

martyn stacey: "i suspect if every balloonist is honest, they will hit trees at some stage and it's a learning curve. now that was a commercial flight. conditions most probably outside what they should have been in". schwartz: "did you fly that day?" martyn stacey: "no, we cancelled our flight that day". schwartz: "did other balloon companies fly?" martyn stacey: "yeah there was about four or five or us all said no to flying". schwartz: the company that did fly and clipped trees coming in to land was balloon adventures, up up and away ltd. dean ragg: "i'm not surprised". schwartz: "the company says it was a minor incident, there was no damage done". dean ragg: "no, but the potential was hugely there for a major incident". schwartz: dean ragg is a former chief pilot of balloon adventures up up and away. when he left the company in march 2010, he took his safety concerns to the civil aviation authority. four months later the caa grounded the company's seven balloons for seven weeks. it said the operation presented a

threat to people's safety. dean ragg: [balloon pilot] "i started looking into rules, regulations, maintenance and all that sort of stuff and i found a few things that needed being tidying up. then i went through the process of tidying those particular spots up with a little difficulty". ♪ schwartz: one of the two directors of balloon adventures up up and away is pilot chris johnson. as a young army officer he was court martialled for theft. in 2004 he was convicted under the civil aviation act after providing air investigators with what the judge called a bogus document. dean ragg: "i've known him since i was eighteen. a long time". schwartz: "he taught you to fly". dean ragg: "he taught me to fly aeroplanes, yep originally, yep". schwartz: "so what kind of a person is he?" dean ragg: "a very interesting one. very intelligent, very clever, very charismatic. he could sell ice cubes to eskimos, that sort of person.

yeah he was a very good friend up until i started working for him and then our friendship fell apart". schwartz: "why was that?" dean ragg: "just through these problems i was having as chief pilot". ♪ schwartz: dean ragg says chris johnson wanted to put four balloons in the air on a day of thick fog. dean ragg: "we got out to the launch site, it was foggy. so you couldn't even see to the other end of the launch site. he said, "oh it doesn't matter, we'll be fine." i'm like "no, look this isn't legal. we're outside the legal parameters of flying". in which case he said "well we'll wait and see what happens". so we did, we waited for about half an hour and the conditions got worse and then i said well that's it. the flight's over. we're going home". schwartz: not flying, potentially cost the company thousands of dollars in lost fares. dean ragg: "my experience has told me they're very money orientated. the profit comes first".

schwartz: chris johnson is also a part owner and operator of balloon adventures emirates. in april 2010, one of the company's balloons made a fast and heavy landing. two passengers were killed, a crew member was paralysed and later died. the company was cleared of any wrongdoing and a conviction against the pilot was later quashed, but the aviation regulator found that the balloon had been launched in marginal weather after an earlier take off was aborted due to high winds. peter kollar: "adventure tourism is the fastest growing sector within tourism". schwartz: chris johnson's partner in the emirates' business is peter kollar. he's also a former director of balloon adventures up up and away. in 1995, peter kollar was flying for up up and away when his balloon came down at sea off christchurch. three tourists drowned.

"is it a company that has been of concern to the civil aviation authority?" rex kenny: "any company that has a conviction is of concern". schwartz: rex kenny believes there's no longer anywhere to hide for unsafe operators. he oversees adventure aviation for new zealand's civil aviation authority - the caa". all adventure aviation businesses must now be certified by the caa. previously, the authority could act only against pilots and aircraft. rex kenny: "so the new adventure aviation regulations allow us to actually suspend the operating certificate and therefore put the company the on ground if necessary in the worst cases. schwartz: martyn stacey supports the new regulation. his company was among the first to be audited and certified. schwartz: "the new

regulations.... will they get rid of any cowboys in the industry?" martyn stacey: "well hopefully, hopefully we haven't had cowboys in the industry but we've had people who've sort of pushed the law to its limits". director chris johnson declined an interview on camera, but spoke with me from dubai. he says he's never pressured any of his pilots to fly when they didn't want to and that safety is paramount. he also told me he welcomes the tighter regulations. schwartz: "so if you have somebody who is a director of a company who has been convicted under the civil aviation act, is that person then deemed to be not a fit and proper person?" rex kenny: "not necessarily. we'd be looking to see that there was a compliance history that showed that if there was a mistake made, that over time that wasn't repeated".

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schwartz: the new zealand government insists its adventure tourism industry is safe.

there's no argument from scott ashcroft and his thrill seeking tour mates. done with bungy they're now onto jet boating and zip lining. "have you ever have any fears about safety doing any of these adventure activities". james keown: "no not at all, not they're all well organised, run by people who obviously know what they're doing so..... i guess at some point you've got to just leave it to them and trust them". schwartz: but the government admits industry self-regulation has been far from perfect, so it's tightening controls across all adventure activities. chris coker: [victim's father] "they change the rules and bring out new regulations as if to say they've fixed the problem. the problem is not fixed. the problem was never a shortage of rules and regulations, the problem is no enforcements. nobody is scared,

there's nobody held to account". schwartz: chris coker believes the only way to truly hold adventure companies to account is to allow accident victims and their families to sue for damages - something which is almost impossible under the country's accident compensation regime. if you're a foreigner holidaying in queenstown and you have an accident, it's more than likely you'll wind up here, at the local hospital or there are any number of doctors, physiotherapists and other health professionals about town. but no matter who you see, or what treatment you receive, it'll be paid for by the new zealand taxpayer. that's because under the country's unique accident compensation scheme, anyone who's injured in new zealand be it resident or visitor is covered. the trade-off is that you can't sue for damages. professor susan watson says the system, when introduced in 1974 was revolutionary, taking the lawyers and the lottery out of

accident compensation. professor susan watson: "if you got hit by a rich person you might get a million dollars compensation, if you got knocked down by a car driven by someone with no assets then you wouldn't get any compensation at all. so there was sort of a desire to have a system which new zealanders perceived to be fairer where everyone would get compensation regardless of fault and regardless of who caused the injury". ♪ schwartz: the universal scheme covers people for accidents at home, work and play. yet ironically it may make accidents more likely. ♪ research conducted by auckland university's commercial law department suggests that without the threat of being sued, an organisation can get complacent with disastrous results. professor susan watson: "new zealand has

four times the rate of workplace fatalities than the uk and twice the rate of workplace fatalities than australia". schwartz: "and what do you put that down to?" professor susan watson: "well all i can say is that it doesn't disprove our idea that because corporations lack conscience, without the ability to sue the corporation for accidents, there isn't an incentive, there isn't sufficient incentive for them to put health and safety regimes or appropriate health and safety regimes in place". ♪ schwartz: the deadly pike river mine disaster in 2010 and the catastrophic building collapses in the christchurch earthquakes have shone a spotlight on new zealand's workplace safety, or lack of it. the government has ordered an independent review. professor watson says thought should be given to introducing a charge of

corporate manslaughter as part of a raft of changes. professor susan watson: "what new zealand perhaps could consider bringing back the right to sue for health and safety breaches in workplaces. another option is to beef up the level of fines for health and safety breaches in workplaces. in australia, the maximum fine for a corporation breaching health and safety is two million dollars - in new zealand it's five hundred thousand dollars". schwartz: bungy entrepreneur aj hackett believes people should have the right to sue for gross negligence. but he says litigation can go too far, like the time a woman tried to sue his las vegas operation when she got wet hair on a jump. aj hackett: "every day working in america we had the threat of our business being closed down through completely ridiculous litigation, and it was a major, major issue and in new

zealand we can concentrate on actually providing a very safe environment and a fun time for our customers. for me, i like the idea of if you want to do something, you take responsibility for your own actions. schwartz: across new zealand's adventure tourism industry, there's little enthusiasm for ditching the country's no fault accident liability system. rex kenny: "you only have to look at the us where people can get the pants sued off them and yet they still have accidents". ♪ steve latham: "i reckon that we've got a culture that we're going to take it to a professional level

without over regulating it and trying to sue each other and all that carry on. we'll always keep it a little bit edgy and that's what people come over here for. if you're sort of worried about getting your knees dirty then maybe you should go to a different place". new zealand is not scared of going its own way, whether in being the first to give women the vote or in standing up to the us over nuclear policy. but in selling adventure, perception is everything. people want a safe scare. ♪ schwartz: the challenge for new zealand is in tightening the safety net without taking the adventure out of adventure tourism.

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jazeera.com. welcome to al jazeera. i'm del walters. these are the stories we are working on at this hour. new clues about the chemical weapons attack in syria. what the white house knows and how they found out. paying honor to a man who helped change a nation forever. 50 years after his "i have a dream" speech, remembering dr. martin luther king. an army doctor turned killer facing military justice and a jury who will decide if he lives or dies. ♪ we continue to follow the depm