‘This cannot happen again’: How Judith Collins reacted to Manawanui findings

Friday, 4 April 2025

Defence Minister Judith Collins has issued a warning to the Navy after a damning report into the October sinking of the HMNZS Manawanui off the cost of Samoa blamed “a series of human errors”.

Speaking in Auckland on Friday afternoon, Collins said the capsizing of the $103 million ship was an “incredibly serious incident” though she was confident the investigation had been handled appropriately.

“We often hear that ‘we don’t want this to happen again’. This cannot happen again,” said Collins, flanked by Defence bosses, Chief of Navy, Rear Admiral Garin Golding, and president of the Court of Inquiry, Commodore Melissa Ross.

“This is a very serious loss to New Zealand and to the Navy and they have picked themselves up and they are doing their very best to undertake all the actions recommended.

“On that basis, I am pleased at the response. There’s no ‘we want to do that one and not that one’ … Do the lot, do it well and don’t let it ever happen again.”

A separate disciplinary hearing has been under way since last month, Golding confirmed. He wasn’t prepared to say when a decision may be reached. “It’s important to maintain the importance of that … not to speculate and to allow that process to be undertaken.”

The 120-page inquiry into the sinking of the ship, which had 75 people onboard including a crew of 45, did not name anyone but identified “witnesses two and four” as being directly responsible for the grounding. Witness four was said to have been in a “supervisory role” which involved “an element of safety oversight”.

Identities were anonymised for privacy and national security reasons, though the identity of the Captain, Commander Yvonne Gray, has previously been reported.

A series of human errors were to blame for the capsizing after crew failed to realise the ship was on autopilot before it grounded.

Confusion over roles, under-training and a lack of risk assessment were all identified in the investigation.

The report also includes a lengthy transcript of the events of that night, including the crew struggling to understand the ship’s movements, and early preparations to abandon. It includes the Captain telling crew, “We’ll get in our liferafts and we‘ll survive this and then we’ll wait for help to arrive.”

According to the report, crew had failed to realise the ship was on autopilot, mistakenly believing instead that thruster control had been lost but then failing to follow the process for a thruster control failure which would have required turning off autopilot.

The ship ultimately grounded, caught fire, and sank.

“The court found significant deficiencies existed in a wide range of [orders, instructions and procedures] related to the incident, and in places were inadequate or poorly managed,” the report concluded.

The loss of the ship was due to hull damage after colliding with the reef that “resulted in downflooding that [led] to the ship capsizing and eventually sinking”.

Collins hinted that further support for the Defence Force was in the pipeline, saying “help is on its way”, though wasn’t prepared to say whether anything would arrive before next month’s Budget. “We need a big uplift in our Defence Force funding”.

She also said the long-awaited release of a new Defence Capability Plan would be very soon.

“I think the Navy, the Airforce, the Army, the Defence Force, know that I’m watching them all the time ‒ in a really positive way ‒ as their aunty and their minister,” Collins added, after being asked if she would be keeping a close eye on the Navy to ensure recommendations were followed through.

“I have great confidence in them.”

Collins also highlighted the 'many' acts of bravery during the sinking ‒ all of the crew had been able to get to shore with minor injuries and the crew were previously praised for abandoning the ship in treacherous weather, at the right time.

“This was an incredibly serious incident and I am confident the investigation has been appropriately thorough,” Collins said.

The report was “very serious” and “undertaken with a great degree of care and diligence and honesty”.

Chief of Navy Rear Admiral Garin Golding reiterated when it came to the sinking, he promised to 'own it, fix it and learn from it'.

He said reviews had been completed of risk management, oversight and documentation.

'We need to do things differently, we need to adapt to new technologies, change the way we approach what we do, and to find new ways to continue to deliver upon what is expected of us.'

He called them generational changes that would set up the Navy in the future.

Labour defence spokesperson Peeni Henare said the report did not adequately address the impact the sinking would have on the environment or the local economy, and who will pay for any potential clean up and replacement.

“There are more questions left unanswered,” he said. “For a $100 million vessel New Zealanders need to know who will be picking up the tab.”

‘We’ll survive this’: Captain orders abandon ship

A transcript of what happened on board when control of the ship was lost, over a 45 minute period from 6pm, shows the crew troubleshooting to understand what is happening. At 6.15pm starboard steering is lost and according to the transcript a crew member says, “It’s not really doing what I want it to do.”

A few minutes later a witness pipes, “nautical emergency, nautical emergency, nautical emergency”. By 6.25pm discussion of abandoning ship has begun: “So from a command perspective I want to look and see if I can get a sea boat in the water so that if we have to abandon ship then I’ve already got something in the water,” a crew member is quoted in the transcript as saying.

By about 6.45pm the crew issued a mayday call and said they were preparing to abandon.

Three minutes later the captain tells crew: “This isn’t a great situation, however I have faith that you all know what you need to do. We’ll get to our liferaft stations, we’ll get in our liferafts and we‘ll survive this and then we’ll wait for help to arrive.

“Make sure that you can do what you can to prepare yourself for getting in that liferaft if that means getting extra clothes then do that. All personnel are to try to get to the loo before they get in the liferaft.”

The last pipe heard, “away lifeboats, away lifeboats” came at 6.54pm, and after that no more voices were heard.

What the inquiry found

Contributing factors identified included training and experience, and distraction, along with aggravating factors that made the incident worse including incorrect procedures and inadequate preparedness.

One crew member had “charge of the ship without the necessary training”.

Several on board had “no or very limited … formal risk management training”.

The report described the ship as having “fostered a culture where appropriate [risk management] was not practised”, leading to a “lack of clarity, uncertainty and confusion regards the roles and responsibilities for risk management administration on the ship”.

One crew member had also been “ordered to maintain a [mission risk register] and ensure that all personnel were aware of relevant risks and the associated controls and mitigations that should be in place to manage risks”, though it appears this had not been followed.

The report vindicated the crew’s decision to abandon the ship, noting the Manawanui had “reached the designed safe abandonment point” after grounding and evacuation was the “right decision”.

However, it was critical of the “inadequate” planning and conduct of the survey task being carried out by the ship at the time it sank, which was in support of the then-upcoming CHOGM meeting, noting there were “insufficient numbers of qualified survey personnel” for the task.

The ship also did not have an effective watch rotation to prevent fatigue - though fatigue was not deemed an “operative factor” in the grounding.

The cause of the engine room fire that sent plumes of black smoke into the air was determined to be electrical, likely caused by the “violent shock resulting from the grounding” which in turn damaged the electrical circuits and then ignited a fuel source.

A second fire was likely caused by fuel from one of the two service tanks “transiting all the way up through the main engine room vents”.

No alcohol was consumed by any member of the ship’s company or embarked personnel in the lead up to the survey task, the report confirmed.

The report makes several recommendations that could prevent a similar incident occurring in the future, such as reviewing the risk management framework and a review of OIP, meaning orders, instructions and procedures.

A review of training processes should also be carried out to ensure that only suitably qualified personnel are “posted and/or appointed with prescribed levels of proficiency and experience”.

At the time of collision, the ship was carrying a crew of 45 along with 15 personnel undertaking on-the-job training, seven personnel from other government agencies and four from Pacific Island partner militaries. The report noted that there were 20 personnel deficiencies, deemed “a high number” for a 45-strong crew.

The court of inquiry heard from 64 witnesses across 101 interviews, totalling over 75 hours of oral evidence.

The release of the full report follows interim findings late last year which identified human error as the primary cause of the Manawanui sinking.

Collins has already confirmed the Government won’t stump up the cost of replacing the ship, telling The Post in January that she’d rather put funding into other areas.

“Manawanui was a useful ship, but it’s not a warship … I’d rather have that money go into the fact that we have a large maritime area, and we have to be significantly more, say, able to deal with that and what might be happening in the future,” Collins said.