How Widespread Is Cannabis Use in NZ’s Adventure Tourism Industry

Cannabis use may be widespread in New Zealand’s adventure tourism industry

After the shocking revelation that Lance Hopping, the pilot involved in the Carterton Ballooning tragedy in which 11 people died, was found with cannabis in his system we’re asking how widespread is the use of this illegal drug in New Zealand’s adventure tourism industry, and how much of a factor does it play in the industry’s high accident rate?

Yesterday a report into the Fox Glacier Sky Dive NZ crash also found that two of the jump masters were also found to be under the influence of cannabis.

We think its time for New Zealand to require mandatory drug and alcohol testing for everyone employed in the adventure tourism industry. With more frequent testing of people involved in high risk activities where operator error may lead to serious consequences for thrill seekers.

Additionally, drug and alcohol testing must be carried out on operators immediately after an accident or fatality.

If New Zealand’s reputation as a safe tourism destination is have any degree of credibility the government will take this issue seriously and deal with it swiftly to allay public concerns.

From Stuff

“Balloon crash pilot had smoked cannabis – report

The pilot of January’s balloon tragedy in Carterton was flying with cannabis in his system when he crashed, killing all 11 people on board.

Toxicology tests performed on the body of Lance Hopping, 53, four days after the crash returned positive for cannabis, with the discovery described as “concerning” by investigators.

The findings were part of an interim report issued by the Transport Accident Investigation Commission (TAIC) this morning, four months after the balloon struck powerlines, caught fire and crashed into a field on January 7…

…yesterday TAIC called for an alcohol and drug testing regime to be implemented for people performing activities critical to flight safety, after announcing that two tandem skydive masters had smoked cannabis before a Skydive New Zealand plane crashed after takeoff from Fox Glacier in September 2010.

While this morning’s report contains a number of details about what happened on the day, it includes no analysis of those facts, nor any recommendations or key lessons to be learned from the crash.

Instead those findings would be reserved for TAIC’s final report due in March next year.

The families of the victims were briefed on the report last month, and it is understood several people have had drafts of the report for weeks, including the balloon company owners, members of Hopping’s ground crew, and his fiancee Nina Kelynack.”

read more

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BBC Interview with family of Bradley Coker. Adventure Tourism must learn from NZ crash. Cannabis Use

The BBC has screened an interview with the family of Bradley Coker.

Bradley, a British tourist, died along with eight other people when a sky diving plane crashed over the Fox Glacier on the day of the Christchurch earthquake. His death was one of many in the adventure tourism sector in New Zealand, one that is perceived to be poorly regulated and with a high accident rate.

In a statement to the BBC, Prime Minister John Key said approximately 50 people had been killed in the adventure tourism sector in the last 8 years.

from the BBC interview with Bradley’s family:

“To anyone thinking about going to New Zealand on an adrenaline sport think twice, the report is a catalogue of errors from both the CAA and the sky diving company” … regulations “not enforced”… “two of the tandem masters had actually taken controlled drugs before they got on the plane” (cannabis)

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For more about New Zealand’s drug problem read this report in the NZ Herald NZ’s world-high drug use no surprise – Experts

BBC:

“The family of a British man who was killed when the aircraft taking him on skydiving trip crashed in New Zealand, has called for a review of aviation safety to stop a further tragedy happening again.

Bradley Coker, 24, died on South Island in 2010 while trying skydiving, along with eight other people. An accident investigation report found a catalogue of errors.

Bradley’s father Chris, sister Elizabeth, and his girlfriend Hayley Denham, want safety to be reinforced in so-called adrenaline sports”.

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Other countries who lost their nationals in the disaster have also reported on the crash, and on the official investigation into one of New Zealand’s worst air disasters.

The Fox Glacier crash was before the Carterton ballooning tragedy in which 11 people were engulfed in flames. The balloon pilot, Lance Hopping, was later found to have cannabis in his system at the time of his death. Remarkably, two of the jump masters in the skydiving crash were also found to have taken cannabis prior to the flight.

Adventure tourism must learn from NZ crash

“THE authors of a report criticising aviation regulators following a skydiving plane crash in New Zealand that killed nine people, including two Australians, in 2010 say there are lessons to be learned by all adventure tourism operators.

The modified topdressing plane, carrying four foreign tourists, four tandem jumpers and a pilot, had too much weight in the rear of the plane when it tried to take off on September 4, 2010, causing it to rise very sharply and at too low a speed to be controllable.
NZ Transport Accident Investigation Commission (TAIC) investigator Ian McClelland says the plane flew regularly with eight passengers, producing too much weight in the rear of the plane, and the owners and pilot were not checking weight and balance as they should be.
But he also says regulation of adventure aviation was not what it should be, that the modifications to the plane were poorly managed, and discrepancies in the modification documents weren’t picked up by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) when it approved them.

“The CAA lost the opportunity to correct the company’s errors,” Mr McClelland said…” more here

 You may also be interested in:

British FCO advice to travellers about New Zealand(May 2011)

“There have been a number of tragic accidents involving British visitors; these also include extreme sporting accidents. If you intend to participate in extreme sports do check that the company is well established in the industry and that your insurance covers you. If you intend visiting remote areas, check with local tourist authorities for advice before setting out. Ensure that you register your details with a Visitor Information Centre or family or friends. Weather conditions can quickly become treacherous in some areas so keep yourself informed of regional weather forecasts.”

Australian Advice to travellers about New Zealand (May 2011)

“Many tourists safely undertake adventure activities in New Zealand. However, many adventure tourism activities have inherent risks, and there have been a number of serious accidents involving Australians and other tourists, some resulting in deaths. Some operators have been found to be negligent. You should be aware that safety standards in New Zealand’s adventure tourism industry may differ between individual operators and may differ from those in Australia.

Travellers need to make their own careful judgements about the risks involved in individual or group activities and of the safety standards of individual operators. We strongly recommend travellers inquire with individual operators about the safety standards adhered to, whether these standards are applied across the industry and the risks involved in the activity. We recommend travellers hold travel insurance and complementary accident or income protection insurance and understand what circumstances and activities are not covered by the policies.”

facebook.com/nzsafety 

 ”I am German and have been in NZ for the past 4-5 years. I completely support this site and strongly confirm these allegatons. NZ has no control or standards and has minimum professionalism or competence…public transport, mobile phone service, administration, hospitals, immigration, you name it…I had it all. NZ is beautiful but things simply do not work. Be careful and and maintain some healthy common sense ’cause you cannot expect it vice versa.”

NZ Safety Expatexposed.com

NZ Safety

A”nother dent in NZ’s undeserved international reputation! The word is getting out that New Zealand is a bit lax in the H&S area!

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/n…objectid=10804653

http://www.facebook.com/nzsafety“

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Blogs tagged ‘Adventure Tourism deaths‘ and these posts:

Fox Glacier Aviation Disaster “New Zealand Unsafe” (May 2012)

Excitor III and Mac Attack Companies Fined for Broken Backs (May 2012)

Harness Failure Leaves Woman Dangling At Nevis Bungy Swing (May 2012)

Carterton Ballooning Tragedy, Urgent Checks Follow Air Worthiness Concerns (Feb 2012)

Emily Jordan: Riverboarding Death By Misadventure. Tell Clients The Truth About The Risks. Staff Panicked (May 2011)

Sarah Bond Quad Bike Death – Prosecution Brought (August 2009)
Thrillseekers Adventure Ltd Fined For Bungy Fall(May 2011)

Tom Donaldson Inquest – Coroners Says ‘Warn Tourists’ (Nov 2010)

Wellington Reverse Bungy Closed Amid Safety Fears (Dec 2010)

Tourists Seriously Injured In Bay Of Islands Boat Incidents (April 2011)

Catherine Peters: Alistair McWhannell Guilty Of Manslaughter In Swing Bridge Death (June 2010)

Fox Glacier Plane Crash, Nine Dead Including Four Tourists (Sept 2010)

Tourists Injured in Queenstown Jet Boat Crash, Another Died Swimming With Dolphins (Nov 2010)

Australian Tourist Seriously Injured By Dophin Boat (Dec 2010)

Tourists seriously injured in collision between Outward Bound cutter and a Dolphin Watch Ecotours (Feb 2011)

Six students and teacher drown in outward bound activity (May 2009)

Fox Glacier Aviation Disaster “New Zealand Unsafe” – Updated

Considering a holiday to New Zealand. Watch this video first and then visit this Facebook Page  facebook.com/nzsafety

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You may be forgiven for not remembering the tragic loss of life when a sky diving plane crashed on the day of the Christchurch earthquake, it probably got pushed out of the news where you are. Nine people died when an overloaded, converted crop dusting plane lost control over the Fox Glacier. For background read our blog Fox Glacier Plane Crash, Nine Dead Including Four Tourists (Sept 2010).

The Transport Accident Investigation Commission report into the disaster was released today watch Extended video: TAIC on plane crash and it wasn’t good news – not for the Civil Aviation Authority, nor Skydive NZ and certainly not for the people employed by them who were allegedly under the influence of drugs. The entire Adventure Tourism industry in New Zealand will be sucking in its breath over this.

Update: Hours later we learned that the pilot involved in the Carterton Ballooning tragedy in which 11 people died was also found to have cannabis in his system.

In a statement to the BBC, Prime Minister John Key said approximately 50 people had been killed in adventure tourism sector in the last 8 years.

From The NZ Herald

The report revealed the plane had been converted from a crop-duster to a skydiving plane only three months earlier by engineering company Super Air Limited.

It said the modification was “poorly managed” and the Civil Aviation Authority failed to detect discrepancies in documentation about the work.

Furthermore, the company operating the plane, Skydive NZ, had not completed weight and balance calculations before it entered service, meaning the plane was flown outside its loading limits every time it carried a full eight passengers.

The report also confirmed at least two of the skydive-masters had been taking controlled drugs and one had taken cannabis shortly before the flight. It called on the Government to introduce a rigorous drug and alcohol testing regime…

Now the Herald is running a story about the British father of one of the victims and his campaign to draw attention to New Zealand’s unsafe Adventure Tourism Industry, in the hope that he may shame the country into getting its act together:

The family of a British tourist killed when a skydiving plane crashed at Fox Glacier has launched an internet campaign claiming New Zealand is unsafe.

Chris Coker, whose 24-year-old son Bradley was one of nine people killed in New Zealand’s worst air disaster for 17 years, said his son’s death was “completely avoidable” and showed a lack of proper regulation and control…

And continuing in a course of action that is remarkably similar to that of Chris Jordan, father of another British tourist Emily Jordan whose death prompted a paper-pushing review and weak regulation of New Zealand’s adventure tourism industry…

“Mr Coker has written an emotional letter to Prime Minister John Keybegging for a review of aviation regulations, and launched a YouTube video and Facebook campaign critical of New Zealand safety standards.

Mr Coker told the Prime Minister that public and tourists in New Zealand were “not safe” and there was an overwhelming case for change in the way adventure sports are regulated.

Until action was taken, there was compelling evidence that young people should “think twice” before pursuing adventure activities in New Zealand…”

We say, don’t think twice. Don’t participate in Adventure sport activities in New Zealand. The deaths that make it into the news are just the tip of the iceberg.

Think of going somewhere where the safety standards are first world and better regulated. If you’re paying first world money for your experience,  demand a world class experience for your dollar. These activities aren’t cheap.

Go somewhere where adventure tourism operators have a real appreciation of the hazards, are less likely to be under the effects of illicit drugs and where the accident stats are a lot better.

Go somewhere that does not have the no blame ACC accident compensation culture that has evolved in New Zealand.

“Elizabeth Coker, Bradley’s sister and a UK lawyer, added that it was “natural” to expect safety and legal standards in Commonwealth countries to match those of the UK and this was not the case.

“You cannot sue for negligence in New Zealand and there is no criminal offence of corporate manslaughter,” she wrote. “In our view, this has had the effect of lowering safety standards in New Zealand.

“There is no ultimate sanction, either financial or criminal, on companies who ignore their duty to protect the public.

“This accident report backs our view that the legal system in New Zealand is weighted entirely against victims of accidents, and indeed the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office website warns UK citizens of this in giving startling advice about travelling to New Zealand.” (all quotes from the NZHerald)

You may also be interested in

 Blogs tagged ‘Adventure Tourism deaths‘ and these posts:

Harness Failure Leaves Woman Dangling At Nevis Bungy Swing (May 2012)

Carterton Ballooning Tragedy, Urgent Checks Follow Air Worthiness Concerns (Feb 2012)

Thrillseekers Adventure Ltd Fined For Bungy Fall (May 2011)

Tom Donaldson Inquest – Coroners Says ‘Warn Tourists’ (Nov 2010)

Wellington Reverse Bungy Closed Amid Safety Fears (Dec 2010)

Tourists Seriously Injured In Bay Of Islands Boat Incidents (April 2011)

Alistair McWhannell Guilty Of Manslaughter In Swing Bridge Death (June 2010)

Fox Glacier Plane Crash, Nine Dead Including Four Tourists (Sept 2010)

Tourists Injured in Queenstown Jet Boat Crash, Another Died Swimming With Dolphins (Nov 2010)

Australian Tourist Seriously Injured By Dophin Boat (Dec 2010)

Tourists seriously injured in collision between Outward Bound cutter and a Dolphin Watch Ecotours (Feb 2011)

New Zealand’s Toughest Town – Updated

This week on Television New Zealand’s Close Up:

“Reporter Jehan Casinader investigates what life is like in one of our toughest towns. Sex for drugs and organised fights – and we’re talking about teenagers. What can be done to help?.”

The show hasn’t even aired yet and no one know what the town is, but read some of the comments that have already been left on the Close Up Facebook page : http://www.facebook.com/closeup/posts/10150263419587268

Update 18 July: The town was later  named as  Kawerau in the Bay of Plenty. Watch the video here, parental discretion is advised.

Ryan Blundell
“Who really cares where this is? its happening all over the country. I have been overseas for the last two years and since I have returned 6 months ago, I have been very suprised by the amount of street drug dealers that have randomly approached me. I would say about 40% of the times I have been out in Central Auckland I have been approached. One time out henderson i was approached during the day time. I cant recall this ever happening to me in the past. all of them were young, one was only 16!”

Kellee Corness
‎@Kaye Basset Millar: Bullshit! Out of the 4 kids who used to get regular straps at my school, one is dead, 2 are drug dealers and the other is fried on P. The strap never taught them to respect their elders. Their parents fcked their lives up for them. Adults have a lot to answer for when it comes to troubled youth!!!

Jonathan Rodgers
“reaping what we’ve sown ……this is not just one tough community there are models of this in ever town and city in this country ……….social fail”

Levin was mentioned but here at E2NZ we’re guessing it could be Whangarei.

Read our blog “Kids in New Zealand, the village lets them down” (May 2010)

“Can you believe it? parents and caregivers in Whangarei are said to be organising fights between their kids to sort out petty playground squabbles. We know that Michael Laws called the kids in the far north ‘feral‘ but this really is hard to believe…“

Or it could just as easily be Kaitaia, or Gisborne. See “Kaitaia’s Kids’ Drunken Night Of Rampage“ (April 2010)

Residents of the small Northland town of Kaitaia suffered $10,000 in damages after a ‘group’ of  10 tanked up kids rampaged through the town for three and a hlaf hours on Monday night last week.  Three and a half hours, where were the police at the time?…

The sad truth is that Kaitaia suffers from the same problems that afflict many New Zealand’s socially and economically deprived communities, there are ‘Kaitaias’ all over New Zealand.

Take for example Gisborne, another small town on the mid-east coast of the North Island.  You may wish to read our post from 14 April 2010 “Armed Robbery and Drugs, 80% or more smoke weed in Gisborne” and read some of the comments readers made to the Gisborne Herald about their town’s drug problem…

…But that is just two towns out of the whole of the country! you say, you can’t judge a whole country by that.

But there are too many other places with the same problem for the pattern to ignored.

Places like Huntly, dogged by rampant crime. The small towns of Hawke’s Bay – Napier, Flaxmere and Hastings where in the latter a gang of kids smashed their way through the CBD at 4am. Small villages like Mapua where a brawl over the Easter weekend involving 30 people in the early hours of the morning prompted residents to call for a greater police presence.

There are no signs of it abating either, the once cohesive small towns  that used to be the backbone of  New Zealand are rapidly falling apart, crime and disorder are out of control, drug and alcohol abuse are rife  and the country lacks the resources to stop it…”

Then there’s Porirua where the Midnight Express is getting out and tacking the problem head on, read New Zealand a great place to raise kids? Porirua’s Midnight Express (May 2010)

But as Ryan and Jonathan said -  the toughest town could be  anywhere in New Zealand, we’ll be watching to see what Close Up thinks.

New Zealand Universities Slide Down Rankings, Must Try Harder

Most of New Zealand’s universities have continue to slide further down a major international league table after again failing to be placed in the world’s top 50 universities.

The QS World University Rankings 2010/2011 have just been published. No New Zealand university made it to the top 50 and only one was placed in the top 100.

The University of Cambridge topped this year’s list. United States colleges dominated the top 50 with 21 entries, the UK 8, Australia 5;  Japan Canada and Hong Kong each had 3.

New Zealand was beaten out of the top 50 by another four countries also in the region-  S.Korea, Hong Kong, China and Singapore, all of whom had one university listed.

The only New Zealand university to improve was Victoria University of Wellington, which moved up 4 places to 225.

New Zealand’s rankings in the top 500 in 2010 (previous year in brackets)

University of Auckland 68 (61)

University of Otgao 135 (125)

University of Canterbury 189 (188)

Victoria University of Wellington 225 (229)

Massey University  302 (299)

University of Waikato 316 (314)

Auckland University of Technology was not placed in the overall rankings

source

For our facts and stats page about education in New Zealand click here

Other NZ education related stories in the news today

Legal high lure for visiting students

“Legal highs sold over the counter are becoming increasingly popular among international high school students keen to party while away from home.

Sixteen-year-old Brazilian student Monica said the drug scene in New Zealand had been recommended to her before she arrived.

“It is no surprise that students smoke. When you Google images of New Zealand in Brazil, you find only pictures of marijuana,” she told education newspaper Eduvac.

“I prefer Kronic, though. It is good because it’s legal and you can buy it whenever you want…” more here 

Row rages over school abortion

“A teenage girl’s decision to have her school organise an abortion for her without letting her parents know has sparked sharp debate between pro-choice and pro-life groups…” more here

Schoolboy signed his life away

A student who drowned on a school geography trip forged his permission slip after his mother refused to allow him to go due to safety concerns.

Edward Magalogo, 18, was swept out to sea by a freak wave at Muriwai Beach during a field trip with Tangaroa College in March last year…more here