Climbing death review ‘private’
A review into the deaths of two climbers in Fiordland will be kept private, despite an earlier plan to publish it and a call from an outdoors group to release the findings.
New Zealand Alpine Team (NZAT) members Conor Smith, 22, and Sarwan Chand, 27, died while climbing the south face of Marian Peak in the Darran Mountains in April last year. They were the third and fourth NZAT members killed inside four years.
Although none of the deaths happened on official NZAT trips, they prompted former team members and other climbers to voice concerns about a culture that pushed young climbers too far, too quickly.
Soon after, the Expedition Climbers Club (ECC), of which the NZAT is an initiative, announced a review into Smith and Chand’s deaths.
‘‘This is done so that any necessary changes can be made to avoid such an event occurring again, to assist any other inquiries into the accident that may take place, and finally to provide extensive information to the family, the ECC/NZAT, and the wider climbing community generally,’’ club vice-president Jaz Morris said at the time.
The review was finished earlier this year.
NZAT told The Southland Times it planned to publish the document on its website, but never did. Team member Kester Brown said this week NZAT had decided to keep the review private.
‘‘Mainly it was talking to Conor [Smith’s] dad. He wasn’t comfortable with having to deal with the media inquiries that would inevitably follow publishing that. He wasn’t very happy with how things went following Conor’s death with media and he just didn’t want to be subject to that again.’’
The impending coronial inquest and its subsequent published findings would better serve the public interest than the release of the internal review, Brown said.
‘‘There wasn’t really a necessary reason to make it public. It was going to be a gesture of goodwill towards the curiosity around the incident. It wasn’t something that we felt we needed to do in opposing Conor’s dad’s wishes.’’
Federated Mountain Clubs president Peter Wilson said there was benefit in making at least some of the review public. ‘‘It would be good if some of the recommendations that came out of it could get released. There’s definitely a public interest.
‘‘It wasn’t a public inquiry, it was a private inquiry, so they’re not under any obligations to release it. If something was going wrong and it was a matter of public interest and the climbing community wanted to know about it I would encourage them to release that component of the findings.’’
Brown said the review addressed some mountain safety issues and its recommendations had prompted a number of changes with NZAT.
These were mostly around the way the team was structured and the process for recruiting members.
According to its website, NZAT was formed out of ‘‘a desire to support and encourage aspiring young Kiwi alpinists looking to improve their mountain skills’’.
The team operates as a mentor programme, although Brown said senior team members would no longer be referred to as ‘‘mentors’’. Aspiring climbers aged 18 to 25 apply for a place on a three-year intensive training course with some of the country’s best climbers. Between four and six applicants are taken each cycle. The first intake was in 2013.