Stuff
The NZ Alpine Team - an elite group of young climbers - has lost five members since 2013. (Video first published 2017)
An elite climbing team has been cleared of responsibility in the deaths of two young climbers who plunged 100 metres from a vertical rock face in the Fiordland mountains in 2017. A coroner has found the deaths of Sarwan Philip Chand, 27, and Conor Jon Neil Smith, 22, who fell while climbing Marian Peak in the Darran Mountains, was the result of an accident. The men were both members of the elite New Zealand Alpine Team (NZAT), which has come under scrutiny after five members died in five years.
Otago climbers killed in fall, deaths ruled accidental
6 Apr, 2021 07:06 PM
3 minutes to read
Conor Smith. Photo: New Zealand Alpine Team. Photo / Supplied
Otago Daily Times
Two promising mountaineers who died in a fall in Fiordland National Park in 2017 were not climbing beyond their abilities, a coroner has found.
Conor Smith, 22, of Queenstown, and Sarwan Chand, 27, of Wanaka, died while attempting a challenging route on the south face of Marian Peak in the Darran Mountains on April 22, 2017.
The pair s deaths, to which there were no witnesses, was the subject of a three-day inquest in Queenstown in January last year.
Read More