A car rental company was forced to backtrack after its efforts to bill a family whose sons had been killed by a falling glacier caused outrage

The deceased boys were Ashish Miranda, a 24-year-old aerospace engineer, and his younger brother Akshay, a university student who was only 22 when he was crushed by 100 tonnes of falling ice. The boys were posing for a photograph at Fox Glacier when the avalanche took place.

Their parents Ronnie and Winnie Miranda, from Melbourne Australia, were there when it happened and forced to witness the awful deaths of their only children.



The family was on an adventure holiday paid for by older son Ashish to celebrate his parent's 25th wedding anniversary. His body was recovered after the accident but the body of Akshay still remains buried under the ice.
The New Zealand car hire company wanted almost 2,000 dollars from the family to replace the keys which were lost when the tragedy struck, and to cover the cost of towing the car back to Wellington where the rental occurred. A hotel that the family had paid for that night also ruled out reimbursing the cost of the $100 room which the family never used.
Their hard line and dispassionate stance provoked widespread criticism from people all over New Zealand and Australia and led to the intervention of the Prime Minister of New Zealand.

Prime Minister Mr John Key said that the behaviour of the company was ‘crass’ and that while they may have had a legal point it was ‘truly bad business practice’. The company has since backed down.

New Zealand authorities have said about a third of the 600,000 visitors to Fox Glacier ignored warning signs not to enter danger zones.