Jetboat death hearing adjourned

A hearing over a jetboat crash that left a doctor dead was adjourned in Queenstown District Court yesterday.

Former New Zealand Jetboating Association president Jeff Donaldson will now appear on August 17 to answer a charge of operating a vessel in a manner that caused unnecessary danger or risk, the Otago Daily Times reported.

English doctor Paul Woods, 29, a general surgeon at Dunedin Hospital, was killed when the jetboat in which he was a passenger, and which Donaldson was driving, hit a gravel bank and flipped during a Boxing Day trip on the Matukituki River, last year.

Dr Leanne Tonney, Dr Woods' partner, and her brother Dave were injured in the crash.

- NZPA