Whakaari/White Island: Tour company broke safety rules before deadly eruption

Monday, 24 February 2020

On the afternoon of Monday December 9, 2019 Whakaari White Island erupted while tours were in progress, killing 22 people and injuring 25.

Boats belonging to White Island Tours fell short of maritime standards in an audit before a deadly eruption that killed 21 people.

A regulator also slapped one of its vessels with notice to improve health and safety in 2017 in response to a hazard which injured a passenger.

And in the years leading up to the Whakaari/White Island blast, passengers were forced to transfer to other company vessels due to engine issues on six separate occasions.

Flowers on a White Island Tours vessel berthed after the eruption.

Stuff has obtained emails and documents via the Official Information Act detailing the company's dealings with Maritime NZ before and after the eruption on December 9.

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A White Island Tours sign touting a journey to an active volcano on a Whakatāne wharf.

* Whakaari/White Island: No council plans to evacuate in wake of eruption

Helicopter pilot Mark Law talks about rescuing people in the wake of the Whakaari eruption. (Video first published December 11, 2019.)

* Whakaari/White Island: No approved emergency response plan at time of eruption**

* Whakaari/White Island tour maritime safety plan does not discuss eruptions**

Maritime NZ, the nautical equivalent of Worksafe, regulates health and safety on ships.

Blair Simmons, a maritime officer for the regulator, audited White Island Tours on June 23, 2017, a month after Ngāti Awa bought the operation for $9 million from Peter and Jenny Tait.

The PeeJay V sank in flames as it was returning from White Island in 2016. Skipper David Plews, top left, surveys the damage as a blaze rips through his boat.

Simmons found three 'non-conformities', or areas where the Whakatāne company broke maritime rules.

Do you know more? Email george.block@stuff.co.nz

A health and safety improvement notice issued to White Island Tours in 2017, obtained from Maritime NZ via the Official Information Act.

Parachute flares on the vessel Predator had expired, while lifting and cargo equipment on Predator and Phoenix lacked test certificates, Simmons found.

He also discovered shortfalls in health and safety record-keeping, though he termed all failings 'minor'.

An email from a Maritime NZ inspector outlining the results of a 2017 audit, which found several shortfalls.

Among his further observations were that records showed good reporting internally of several accidents and incidents.

However, the company should have notified Maritime NZ of several of the accidents and incidents and did not, including failures of the main engines and injuries to passengers after falls, he wrote.

The month after the audit, Simmons slapped the boat Phoenix with a health and safety improvement notice.

It said the Health and Safety at Work Act was likely being breached via an exposed anchor and chain posing a trip hazard, which had previously injured a passenger, along with guard rails of insufficient height to prevent falls over the bow.

The company sorted the issues by early August 2017, according to an email.

Correspondence in the aftermath of the eruption showed the three boats operating on the day had valid paperwork and their skippers held the required tickets.

All vessels had the 1:10 guide to passenger ratio required when the volcano was at alert level two, up from 1:15 for alert level one.

Phoenix technically exceeded its maximum permissible number of passengers when evacuating 25 people from White Island because the boat Te Puia Whakaari was inoperable due to the ash fallout.

Maritime NZ appreciated this was due to the exceptional circumstances in the aftermath of the blast and was not investigating, Simmons said in an email on December 20.

On January 18, 2016, White Island Tours boat PeeJay V caught fire, forcing 60 people to abandon ship.

The Transport Accident Investigation Commission found the boat had an ineffective firefighting system staff did not know how to use.

From June 2017, the company recorded eight instances of engine issues.

These included six where passengers had to be transferred to another vessel, according to an email from Simmons.

The company said in a statement the breaches identified in 2017 were considered 'minor' by the regulator.

'White Island Tours Limited had acquired and been operating the business for less than two months at the time of the audit, and worked collaboratively with Maritime NZ to promptly remedy the issues.

'We take the safety of our staff and customers very seriously, and all incidents and issues during our tours are discussed and appropriate corrections or improvements made.'

No decision had been made about future tours to Whakaari/White Island and it was not under consideration currently, the statement said.

The company's tours to Moutohorā/Whale Island resumed in January.