Skipper fined for dive death

A man who was at the wheel of his luxury yacht when its propellers fatally struck his friend has been fined for causing the death.

Zhenhua Yang was fined $5850 when he appeared in Auckland District Court for causing the death of Wei Chen, 39.

His lawyer Paul Dacre KC also said Yang would pay emotional harm reparations of $150,000 to the victim’s family members.

In court, Yang took the opportunity finally to apologise.

“I am extremely sorry to [Chen’s] wife, his child, his partner, his parents, our friends,” he whispered in Mandarin, wearing a face mask.

In February 2020, Yang took a group of his family and friends, including Chen, for a scuba diving trip off Motutapu Island.

Chen had just obtained his open water diving qualification at the time.

The sea was choppy and it was raining when the divers entered the water.

The divers split into pairs once underwater, with two experienced divers pairing up, leaving Chen with another diver, Yung.

After about 20 minutes, Chen and Yung came up close to shore about 50 to 100 metres from the boat. Yang drove towards them.

As the two divers struggled to get aboard, sea conditions deteriorated, with the wind and swell causing the boat to move towards rocks.

Yang yelled to his fiancee to tell Chen and Yang to swim to either side of the boat but did not confirm if she had told them, and put the boat into reverse to move away from the rocks.

At some stage while the boat was in reverse, its propeller struck Chen. Yung managed to climb onboard when the boat crashed into the rocks. Chen was shortly after spotted floating face down in the water.

An autopsy found he was killed by multiple blunt force chop wounds.

Yang told police he thought the divers were already on either side of the boat.

He admitted he did not wait to get confirmation that the divers were safe before reversing.