Freezing to death in the Tararuas

I thought the coroners' findings for the accident were underwhelming. [Anyone send me a private message if you want a copy.] The coroner focussed on a lack of equipment and preparation, right down to specifics like "no compass" and "didn't check the weather forecast", but didn't have much conclusive to say about the quality of decision making, which I though was much more of a key thing. I'm reluctant to criticise too strongly, even though it seems that some horrendous decisions were made, and that shouldn't go without serious consideration. Realistically, people who typically prepare well occasionally make dumb mistakes, and chances are everyone here has made at least a few silly mistakes from time to time. Other people frequently do inadvisible things. Nearly all the time, however, people in both groups 1 and 2 get away with it, and nobody ever hears about it, and I'd suspect the portion of accidents is low enough that there are lots of people in group 2 who've never been tested, especially with people who don't go out frequently. Most serious accidents are a combination of controllable precautions and uncontrollable stuff. It's the latter which decides when a person who's done inadvisible things doesn't get away with it, and an incident gets into the news, either for a rescue or worse, and often with dumbed down second-hand media reports. When that happens I sometimes wonder what portion of the mob who are quick to criticise and shame really fall into group 2, but haven't necessarily realised it yet because they've so-far been lucky.

I doubt it. Yetis in NZ rescue people. https://youtu.be/l0pfoBDzAVg I'm fairly sure this one came down to bad decisions.

I saw a yeti skull in a glass case in a monestry in Nepal, lol. The monks held it in very high regard.

And?

please bear in mind the original subject matter, it involves two deaths, please don't trivialise this thread turning it into a joke thread. one of the rules is to stay on topic on a thread and to branch off to another thread if you are going to deviate the conversation

I think @Izogi has it pretty spot on. A combination of poor equipment choices, worse decision making and bad weather did them in. Everyone here has no doubt made one or more of these poor choices and not had to suffer such consequences. I know I have.

Swiss cheese model of accident causation when multiple factors line up in sequence enabling an accident to happen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model

Yep, I do recall having read that theory before.

The Swiss Cheese Model. Suddenly all the mishaps in my life are finally explained! Fascinating stuff @waynowski