The seven courageous helicopter pilots and crew have been formally recognised for their bravery in the hours that followed the Whakaari White island eruption.
Despite receiving some of our top bravery awards many still regret that they couldn't have done more that day.
It might be almost three years since the eruption but the memories of the seven men who flew in to bring whoever they could out - won't change.
Pilot Jason Hill said it was: "dull [and] hard to breathe."
"Almost like a moment in time, it seemed quite calm and still," pilot Tom Storey said.
Pilot Callum Mill said it felt like "sulphuric gas straight on the back of your throat," and it was "pretty surreal."
Storey said when they arrived: "[it] didn't take us long to work out what we had to do."
What they did was nothing short of heroic - and today that's been formally acknowledged.
Kahu Helicopters pilot Mark Law was awarded the top honour a New Zealand Bravery Star and was the first to land on Whakaari that day wading through shin-deep ash to find 20 people in its crater.
"There were already a number of people already deceased sadly. [I was] rendering first aid and reassuring them we were going to help them," Law said.
Storey and Hill were each awarded a New Zealand Bravery Decoration and were flying close behind prepared to rescue - hoping they didn't have to.
However, when the three men realised the extent of the disaster - and heard the Westpac chopper had been stood down - they decided they would bring people home.
"It's just human nature if you ask me you help when help's needed," Hill said.
Flying from Rotorua, Tim Barrow and Callum Mill knew one of their own Volcanic Air choppers had been at the island at the time of the eruption.
Their colleague and his passengers were luckily already on a boat and the pair quickly worked to help who they could.
The efforts of the men along with Graeme Hopcroft and Sam Jones saw 12 people helicoptered out only two survived.
But even heroes have regrets and being stopped from going back to rescue more sits heavily with the men.
"[I] wish I'd kind of never come off until the last body had come off," Storey said.
Hill agreed: "I just wish I'd gone back there wouldn't have been two missing right now."
Both Volcanic Air and Kahu were among the groups charged by Worksafe although the charges don't relate to rescue efforts.
The men will tell you regardless they simply had no other option that day than to help as best they could.
