The Otago Regional Rescue helicopter at the site of a paraglider crash on Roys Peak. Credit: Otago Daily Times
Police have released the name of the 54-year-old Wanaka man who died after a paraglider crash on Roys Peak, near Wanaka, yesterday.
He was 54-year-old David Michael Jongsma from Hawea Flat.
Jongsma was a local chiropractor and a member of Save Wanaka Lakefront Reserves Trust.
He was involved in thetrust's fight against the Wanaka Watersports facility, proposed for a popular and undeveloped section of Wanaka lakefront in Roys Bay.
Emergency services were called to the crash, halfway up the north face of the mountain, about 3pm.
A paramedic is about to be winched from the Otago Regional Rescue helicoper down to the site of a paraglider crash on Roys Peak yesterday. Photo / Kerrie Waterworth
A police spokeswoman said the Otago Regional Rescue Helicopter was able to access the crash site about 5pm, where paramedics found the man dead.
A 28-year-old Dunedin woman, who declined to be named, saw the crash from her holiday campsite at the Glendhu Bay Motor Camp.
''We drove around the road because another paraglider came around quite fast after him and we watched him land down by the road and we drove around to make sure everything was okay and that they had phoned the ambulance.''
The police spokeswoman said the man's body was recovered from the mountainside and police spent much of last night notifying his next of kin.
A Wanaka paragliding representative declined to comment on the crash when contacted by the Otago Daily Times yesterday.
New Zealand Paragliding Open 2018 organiser Mark Hardman also declined to comment.
The national championship is expected to attract more than 100 paragliders to Wanaka between January 28 and February 4.
