'We asked them to turn the boat over' (+video)

Trapped tourist dies after Shotover jet boat flips

Tourists involved in a fatal jetboat accident in Queenstown yesterday are being interviewed by a Maritime New Zealand investigator.
View video: Jet boat tragedy

Kawarau Jet company director Andrew Brinsley said an investigator was with his company today while another was speaking to passengers at Queenstown Police station.

He said the team at Kawarau Jet were absolutely shattered by the accident that killed one Chinese women.

Companions of the tourist trapped under a jet boat after it crashed near Queenstown said they repeatedly asked emergency services to look under the boat for her body.

She was found underneath the boat about 90 minutes after the Kawarau Jet boat flipped on the Shotover River at 2.45pm yesterday after it collided with a sandbar.

Attempts by emergency services to revive the woman failed when her body was eventually freed and taken to shore.

Forty Chinese tourists, split between two Kawarau Jet boats, were nearing the end of a river trip when the accident happened, flinging passengers and the pilot into the water.

Although 21 passengers were quickly rescued and taken to shore, one woman was left trapped under the boat for an hour and a half while Search and Rescue scoured the area for her.

Three News reported that members of the tour group asked emergency services to look under the boat as a helicopter searched the river.

"We asked them to turn over the boat to see if anyone was under it, but they say, `Don't do that'," one tourist said.

Police could not be reached for comment last night.

In a tragic twist, the group had not intended to go jet-boating, but its day trip to Milford Sound was cancelled yesterday because of a massive slip on the Te Anau-Milford road.

Eight people were taken to Queenstown's Lake District Hospital with mild to moderate injuries and one was transferred to Southland Hospital.

Kawarau Jet spokeswoman Alexa Forbes said it appeared the boat had flipped after hitting a sandbar.

Other jet boats had mobilised to help with the rescue, and emergency services were notified immediately after the accident, she said.

"We believe the woman died trapped under the boat. We just couldn't get to her in time. This is a terrible, terrible tragedy to happen," she said.

Forbes would not speculate on whether pilot error was at fault, but said the company was working with investigations by the police and the harbourmaster. The Maritime Safety Authority and Traffic Accident Investigation Commission had also started investigations.

Kawarau Jetboating operations on the river are suspended until further notice.

The company had been involved in only one other incident, where a boat flipped, in 1997, but no-one was injured.

The last person killed in a jet-boat accident was in Queenstown in 1999 when Japanese tourist Yuichiro Shibata died from head injuries after the Shotover Jet boat collided with a canyon wall, the result of a steering failure.

Tourism Minister Damien O'Connor, a former jet-boat operator, said his sympathy went out to the woman's family and all of those involved in the accident, but it was important not to prejudge what had happened.

"With all adventure activity there is inherent risk, but thankfully accidents like this are very rare in New Zealand. Tens of thousands of people ride on jet boats every year ... and our safety record is exemplary," he said.

RIVER ACCIDENTS

- July 1981 Five people die when jet boats from Helijet and Goldstream collide just above the Arrow Junction.

- May 1996 An Alpine Jet boat hits rocks on the Kawarau River, putting five passengers and the driver in hospital.

- December 1997 Eleven people escape serious injury when a Kawarau Jet boat flips on the Shotover.

- March 1998 Twelve people are injured when a Dart River Safaris jet boat hits a rock.

- November 1998 Four people are injured in a Helijet accident on the Kawarau River.

- November 1999 One man dies and 11 are injured when a Shotover Jet hits a rock face.

- June 2000 Two people are injured when a Skippers Canyon jet boat hits a bank on the Shotover River.

- March 2003 A jet boat collides with a Dart Wilderness Adventures jet boat on the Dart River; no-one is seriously injured.

 - with the Southland Times

- © Fairfax NZ News