Tyler Nii, a tennis coach from Southern California, was on vacation in New Zealand when he died in a tandem skydiving accident in Queenstown in January 2018. Photo / Supplied
Tyler Nii, a tennis coach from Southern California, was on vacation in New Zealand when he died in a tandem skydiving accident in Queenstown in January 2018. Photo / Supplied
Californian man Tyler Nii was on a dream overseas adventure, but the decision to tandem skydive while in Queenstown cost him his life. Now a long-awaited coroner’s decision reveals new details about the tragedy, as former company employees raise questions about safety and conditions on the day of the jump. Lane Nichols and Jeremy Wilkinson investigate.
Two tandem skydiving masters refused to jump due to wind conditions the very day a US tourist on a doomed 4.5km descent over Queenstown plunged into Lake Wakatipu and drowned.
That is among the findings in a long-awaited coroner’s decision, released exclusively to the Herald, which canvasses the circumstances around the accident and changes made since to avoid similar deaths.
The victim’s brother Kevin Nii says his grieving family has been left without answers. They believe proper safety standards weren’t met and are frustrated no one has been held accountable.
“I’ve had people in the skydiving community here in the US reach out to say, ‘There’s no f***ing way any of that should have happened. That’s so beyond the pale. It’s just gross negligence’.”
His younger brother, tennis coach Tyler Nii, 27, and tandem skydiving master James Stavro, hit the lake surface at up to 70km/h after both their main and reserve chutes failed to deploy properly on January 10, 2018 – sending them into a fast and out-of-control spin.
The pair plunged about 1.2m into the freezing, choppy lake water before surfacing tangled in ropes.
A finding by Coroner Heather McKenzie was issued last year but has never been publicly released. It describes the pair’s desperate and panicked fight for survival after what should have been a routine tourist adventure went horribly wrong.
They were the last of nine tandem pairs to exit the NZONE Skydive aircraft about 1.30pm, meaning the pair began their descent furthest from land, the finding says.
They hurtled towards the lake at over 120km/h during a 3km free fall which Stavro told investigators was “really good”.
But when he opened the main chute at 1.6km, it failed to deploy properly due to twisted lines, which investigators would later attribute to the way it had been packed.
“The lines were twisted and Mr Starvro could not control it,” the finding says.
Stavro then performed a “cut away” in which he sliced the main chute lines free of the harness before deploying the emergency reserve chute in the hope “he could potentially make land and avoid landing in the water”.
However, the reserve chute also failed to deploy as intended due to a tension knot.
The pair were sent into a “flat horizontal spin” and “largely uncontrolled descent” into the lake, the coroner wrote.
They hit the water at speed about 1.44pm. Stavro did not have a life jacket. Nii was instructed to fit his flotation device after entering the lake.
Search and rescue operation taking place on Lake Wakatipu after tandem skydivers crashed into the Lake Wakatipu in January 2018. Photo / James Allan
The water was described as “rough and very cold”. Both men surfaced and Stavro detached himself from Nii, whose life jacket had failed to inflate. Stavro unsuccessfully tried to manually inflate Nii’s life jacket by blowing into the device. He then cut away parachute lines twisted around Nii’s legs.
“He saw Mr Nii on the surface with his legs free, some air in the life vest, but panicking and using a lot of energy.
“Mr Stavro realised he had lines around his own neck and legs and started cutting these away as he started to sink into the water. When he resurfaced, he could no longer see Mr Nii.”
The skydive aircraft made a mayday call, then circled over the area as a major emergency response was launched.
A nearby farmer at Cecil Peak saw what was unfolding, flew by helicopter to his jetty then rushed to the stricken parachutists in a station boat.
Stavro was pulled hypothermic but alive from the water. A flotilla of vessels joined the search along with sonar equipment and the police dive squad, but Nii’s body was never found.
Tyler Nii’s skydiving death subject to four major investigations
The Coroner said she viewed footage of the descent and water landing. She ruled it was “not plausible” that Nii survived the accident and that the young tourist had drowned.
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and police both investigated but no one was prosecuted. The Transport Accident Investigation Commission (TAIC) launched an inquiry and made a raft of recommendations to improve safety.
Drawing on those investigation reports, Coroner McKenzie declined to hold a formal inquest into Nii’s death.
Her findings, however, canvass the main issues surrounding the accident, some of which accord with concerns expressed by former staff.
Former employees who contacted the Herald raised concerns about weather conditions that day – claiming several staff refused to jump due to adverse winds.
They also cited the company’s failure at the time to have a dedicated emergency rescue boat on standby to respond to inadvertent water landings.
And they claimed staff expressed concerns about the employee who packed Nii’s reserve chute, with the company bringing in an expert rigger after the accident to check those chutes and later carrying out an internal audit.
US tourist Tyler Nii was 27 when he lost his life in a tandem skydiving accident in Queenstown in January 2018. Photo / Supplied
NZONE has refuted the allegations and stood by the company’s safety record.
It says the company is extremely safety-conscious, the industry heavily regulated and subject to regular audits, and that Skydive Queenstown Ltd – trading as NZONE – was found to have complied with all appropriate safety procedures.
“We continue to extend our condolences to Mr Nii’s family and friends noting that the accident was a tragedy and Tyler’s family and friends remain in our thoughts,” the company’s CEO Ken Stone told the Herald.
Addressing the weather conditions in her decision, McKenzie said: “Two jump masters had taken themselves off the jump roster earlier in the day due to the wind.”
Other staff, however, believed the conditions were safe.
The pilot told investigators he took off “in a bit of a crosswind” – about 15 knots. Stavro told police he was comfortable jumping in the conditions. Another tandem master described the wind as “moderate”, saying he had no issues on any of his six jumps that day.
Tandem masters could “individually decide not to proceed” if they felt unsafe.
The Nzone skydiving base near Lake Wakatipu after a tandem pair crash-landed into the water, killing American tourist Tyler Nii. Photo / James Allan
The TAIC report found that while NZONE had identified the risk of an inadvertent water landing, it lacked a viable water rescue plan.
“The operator’s water emergency response plan had no regard for the anticipated time that people can survive in cold water; that’s a problem because it increased the likelihood that rescuers would arrive too late to save lives.”
Several former staff told the Herald they warned the company about the risk of an unintended water landing linked to gear malfunction in the years prior to the accident, and the need for an inflatable rescue boat.
“We raised the concern,” one former staffer claimed. “The recipe for disaster was there.”
Other findings canvassed in the coroner’s decision include the life jacket failing to inflate. But due to the life vest not being located, the cause of this failure could not be determined.
The decision noted that NZONE had no maintenance and inspection programme at the time for life jackets “to ensure they remained in a serviceable condition”.
It was noted that, in line with regulations, Stavro was not equipped with a life jacket, decreasing his ability to remain afloat.
In addition, CAA rules “did not set minimum safety requirements for tandem parachuting operations to mitigate the risk of a parachute landing unintentionally in water”.
Raft of changes implemented in aftermath of fatality
In the tragedy’s aftermath, NZONE introduced a life jacket maintenance and inspection programme.
The company now requires all tandem masters to wear flotation devices on jumps and for staff to pass basic swim tests.
And NZONE now has a rescue boat permanently located at the company’s base “to enable more effective water recoveries”, with staff trained in use of the equipment, plus the provision of new safety and first aid gear.
Following Nii’s death, CAA took action to ensure parachuting operators had updated water hazard procedures and also undertook a review of the skydiving sector.
TAIC also stipulated that skydiving companies operating near water needed to “consider and mitigate” additional risks from unintentional water landings following the accident.
In a statement this week, NZONE defended its safety record and that of the wider industry.
The accident was subject to detailed investigations by TAIC, CAA and police, with no charges laid against the company, it said.
NZONE was unaware of any staff raising concerns about the potential for inadvertent water landings resulting from gear malfunction or the need for a dedicated rescue boat before Nii’s death.
Tyler Nii, right, with his brother Kevin and parents Nancy and Bob, before the tragedy. Photo / Supplied
American tourist Tyler Nii, 27, died in a tandem skydiving accident at Queenstown in January 2018 after crash-landing into Lake Wakatipu. Photo / Supplied
Such concerns could be reported internally via safety quality improvement forms (SQIFs) – which were reviewed by CAA – or anonymously. There was no record of these concerns being raised in SQIFs, the company said.
“This industry is extensively controlled, audited and regulated. Neither the TAIC or CAA investigations raised these issues.”
Claims the wind conditions were unsafe that day were “completely untrue”.
Neither CAA nor TAIC had concerns about the weather conditions, which were well below the allowable limits approved by CAA, the company said.
NZONE noted it had cancelled more than 100 days of operations in 2018 due to adverse weather.
Finally, the company said there were no SQIF reports expressing concerns about the staff member who packed the reserve chutes.
A random sample of those chutes was subsequently checked and found to be “impeccable”.
When staff claimed not enough reserve chutes had been opened, an independent rigger was brought in to conduct further inspections and an internal audit was carried out.
Stone told the Herald the company was committed to providing a safe experience for customers and had fully co-operated with authorities.
“It is clear that the Coroner agreed the matter had been investigated fully and that the steps taken by NZONE since the accident are appropriate.”
Tyler Nii, pictured with his older brother, Kevin. Photo / Supplied
Nii’s brother Kevin said the family were still grieving and the pain of losing him remained raw.
Kevin’s own children had missed out on knowing their uncle. Nii’s dog Bishop was nearing the end of his life and felt like Kevin’s only connection to his dead brother.
“I don’t know if there is anything else to say about tragedy except that I don’t want it to happen again, and that there is a community of people who still get together to remember [Nii] every year on his birthday.
“I try my best to remember how much he was finding himself in those years leading up to his death and the potential that we lost from him is immeasurable.
“He was a professional coach, a gifted athlete, a dedicated youth mentor and a million other things, and it hurts to know there is a hole in your life where he should have been.”
Lane Nichols is Deputy Head of News and a senior journalist for the New Zealand Herald with more than 20 years’ experience in the industry.
Jeremy Wilkinson is an Open Justice reporter based in Manawatū covering courts and justice issues with an interest in tribunals. He has been a journalist for nearly a decade and has worked for NZME since 2022.
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