The bodies of photographer Richard Green, his wife and graphic artist Carolyn, and documentary maker John Davis have been retrieved from the wreckage of a helicopter crash.
The delicate operation to remove the bodies from mountainous terrain in the NSW Hunter region took almost 24 hours from the time the helicopter wreckage was discovered on Monday night.
The environmentalists had spent their final day on Saturday at an anti-mining event at Breeza near Tamworth, protesting the controversial Chinese state-owned Shenhua and Caroona coal mines on the Liverpool Plains, before taking off on the fatal flight.
Pilot Mr Green had previously lost his licence for six months for dangerous flying after four incidents in 2013 when his helicopter was at risk of colliding with other aircraft and another where he struck overhead powerlines.
The powerlines tore off part of his helicopter, but after landing and inspecting the damage Mr Green took off again, according to an Administrative Appeal Tribunal judgment.
A Civil Aviation Safety Authority spokesman said on Tuesday Mr Green had to prove his aeronautical knowledge and proficiency before the suspension was lifted in March last year.
The wreckage of the Greens' helicopter was discovered on Monday night in the NSW Watagans National Park, near Cessnock, two days after they took off on a flight that should have taken two hours.
No mayday calls or emergency beacons were detected on Saturday when severe storms hit the Hunter region.
Family members became concerned at the weekend when Mr Green, 74, Mrs Green, 71, and Mr Davis, 72, failed to return to Sydney.
"I thought that maybe they'd landed and were going to stay overnight and get going the next day," Felicity Davis, wife of Mr Davis, told reporters on Tuesday.
"So I was quite convinced that he was going to turn up, we were going to hear that they were okay."
Mr Davis' daughter Sophie said her dad had died while living out his passion.
"He was excited, I would say, until the last moments of his life about what he was creating and the message that he was getting out there about coal mining in Australia," she said.
Mr Green, once Europe's leading expert in computer graphics, reportedly "made a motza" when he sold his company Online Conferences on the UK stock exchange more than 20 years ago.
