How skydiver was saved from lake

A helicopter pilot and a farming couple have been credited with saving a jumpmaster’s life after tandem skydivers plunged into a Queenstown lake.

Thanks to their actions, the instructor survived with ‘‘minor bruises’’ and was back doing yoga yesterday. The trio are disappointed they could not save the other man.

Wanaka pilot James Ford heard about the skydiving accident over the radio as he was flying near Lake Wakatipu about 1.40pm on Wednesday.

Ford called Cecil Peak Station farmer Philip Rive, who was working nearby, and flew him to the boat. ‘‘I didn’t know what I was going to, but I knew I had to go as fast as I could. It’s a cold lake and you just want to get them out, don’t you?’’ Ford said.

Rive and his wife, Kate, who drove the boat, pulled the tandem master from the water just before 2pm.

‘‘I knew we would need two of us. I grabbed the fella in the water and she helped me pull him in. As you could imagine he was quite heavy,’’ Rive said.

‘‘He’s been though a bit of an ordeal. He’s been floating in the water for a while and had waves breaking over his head and if you could only imagine what the poor bugger was going through.’’

They retrieved two suits and a helmet from the lake. There was no sign of the second skydiver.

‘‘I asked him [tandem master] where the other person was . . . but he didn’t really respond. He swallowed a lot of water and things were not that great.’’

Not being able to save the man in the water was a tragedy, Rive said.

‘‘I feel for the family of the person who is still in the lake and I feel for the company that was operating at a time because no-one wants this thing to happen.’’

Ford said he was ‘‘highly disappointed’’ they could not find the second skydiver.

‘‘I would love loved to found a second person, but we unfortunately could not,’’ he said.

The instructor suffered only with ‘‘minor bruises’’ and was back doing yoga on Thursday.

Extensive searches on Wednesday failed to find the missing tandem skydiver, an overseas traveller in his 20s, who is presumed dead.

‘‘The amount of people who turned up as quick as they could with their boats shows the human spirit and when things go bad everyone is there to help,’’ Rive said.

A GoPro camera on the jumpmaster’s wrist survived the impact when the pair crash landed in the lake.

The tandem pair wore compulsory life jackets, but it is unclear if the client’s inflated.

NZone Skydive executive director Anthony Ritter offered a special thanks to those who saved the jumpmaster, though he’d heard a slightly incorrect version.

‘‘As I understand it he was flying overhead in his helicopter, he saw what happened, he managed to land near his home, jump in a boat and race out and saved our tandem master’s life.’’

Transport Accident Investigation Commission (TAIC) lead investigator Barry Stevenson said evidence would include the GoPro video footage, data recorded by the parachute kit and the parachutes.

He said police were doing a ‘‘recovery operation’’. Searching for the missing man did not resume on Thursday, though the police dive squad may use sonar to try to find his body. Police said the lake was about 250 metres deep where the skydivers crashed.

‘‘The timely response in recovering the jump master was critical to ensuring his survival,’’ Otago Lakes Central area commander Inspector Olaf Jensen said.

‘‘He’d been in the lake for 20 minutes. Obviously survivable time in that lake is quite limited.’’

Police were working with consulate staff to advise and support the missing man’s next of kin, Jensen said.

Jensen declined to name the nationality of the man but said he was visiting New Zealand by himself and was skydiving as an individual, not with an organised tour group.

Earlier, TAIC said it was investigating a ‘‘possible malfunction of the parachute’’.