Maritime investigators, police probe rafting fatality

A maritime investigation into a whitewater rafting tragedy which killed an Auckland woman could take up to three months.

Yoly Nim Yan Chi, aged 19, died after the raft she was in flipped on the Shotover River near Queenstown on Tuesday.

The Otago Medical School student fell from the raft into the swift-flowing river in part of a rapid known as the "Toilet" and became trapped underwater.

Despite an immediate rescue effort, she could not be freed for more than an hour and only when part of the raft was cut away.

Ms Chi's parents are understood to have gone to Queenstown and an autopsy was carried out in Invercargill yesterday.

A Maritime Safety Authority investigation has begun and could take between two and three months. Police are also investigating.

It is the first commercial whitewater rafting fatality in the Queenstown area since 1995.

A rafting operator's certificate can be withdrawn and a fine issued if charges are proved but the acting MSA director Bruce Maroc said it was too early to apportion blame.

The crew of another raft that arrived at the scene shortly after the accident called the accident "freaky" given it occurred on a calm stretch of water but the accident again places the spotlight on the adventure tourism industry.

Ms Chi's death was the 40th adventure tourism-related accident in the Southern Lakes area since January 1997 and the third this year. It is the first commercial rafting death since three in the mid-1990s.

In November 1995, Thai tourist Yutti Tantihamanon, 49, drowned after a Danes Shotover Rafts raft flipped, also in the Toilet rapid.

In July 1995, Carol Palmer, 26, an Hawaiian teacher, died after getting trapped in undercut rock in the Toaster rapid, also during a Danes trip.

In November 1994, Englishman Sean Farrell, 44, drowned on a Kawarau Rafts trip when two rafts flipped at the Jaws rapid. Kawarau Raft Expeditions and a company director were convicted of negligent operation.

- Staff reporters, NZPA