Pike River Royal Commission phase two wrap-up

Wellington officials fiddled while Pike River burned, phase two of the Royal Commission into the mine tragedy was told. Mine boss Peter Whittall, meanwhile, continued to give the families hope.

“I knew nothing at all about mines or mining,” a grief-stricken Tara Kennedy told the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Pike River tragedy, as she recalled the desperate days of hoping her partner and father of their three children, Terry Kitchin, would be rescued from the mine.

In her innocence of the grim realities, she, like other relatives of the Pike 29, had clung to the daily top-up of optimism she received from Pike chief executive Peter Whittall and the police officer in charge, Superintendent Gary Knowles, following the November 19 explosion.

What she and the other families did not know was that those in control of the rescue operation, a phalanx of police and civil servants hundreds of kilometres away in Wellington, knew nothing about mines or mining either.

Nor did many of them know that at the twice-daily family briefings with Whittall and Knowles, vital information that would have helped them grasp the dismal outlook for their men was not being conveyed to them – seemingly because Whittall did not know of it, and because Knowles did not understand it.

While Whittall spoke of fresh-air bases and water supplies, creating an image of men sitting cramped and hungry around an open air pipe wondering when the rescuers would turn up, officials and politicians in Wellington were being warned of the likelihood of mass fatalities.

While Whittall used the innocuous-sounding word “heating” to describe one of the major obstacles to a rescue attempt, experts at the site and officials in Wellington knew there was almost certainly a fire burning underground. And they knew that – regardless of whether it was classed as a heating or a fire – any source of ignition meant the triangle of risk was complete: given the presence of methane, oxygen and flame, further explosions were inevitable and there would be no window of opportunity for rescue teams to go in.

It was evident that fire was burning by midday on Saturday, November 20, the day after the first explosion. Robin Hughes, a former chief inspector of coal mines, trustee of the Mines Rescue Trust and ventilation engineer at Solid Energy’s Spring Creek Mine, had been at the Mines Rescue Trust’s base near Greymouth, using the service’s specialist equipment to analyse gas samples taken from the top of Pike’s ventilation shaft. The early readings indicated a methane fire; by the following day there were signs it had begun burning coal, raising fears it would spread and cause roof supports to collapse.

On Saturday afternoon, Hughes made his findings known to the police-led emergency team at the mine site. By then, other mining specialists, with expertise in gases, ventilation, geology, surveying and rescue logistics, had flocked to Pike from Solid Energy operations on the West Coast and Waikato, and from mines rescue organisations in New South Wales and Queensland. Highly trained volunteers from the New Zealand Mines Rescue Trust had been in attendance since the Friday evening.

Many of the experts at the scene believed the men would have died in the initial blast, and thought the weight of evidence was against the likelihood of miracle survivors. CCTV footage had shown the force of the 52-second explosion emerging from the mine portal – more than 2.3km from its likely source. Although Daniel Rockhouse and Russell Smith had struggled out, both were in the stone access tunnel when the explosion occurred, while the other men were all thought to have been working much further inside the mine and closer to the likely source of the blast.

Because Pike was a very small mine with few roadways, it was unlikely any areas would have avoided the force of the explosion. It was known that the compressed air line was not working normally, and gas readings showed unsurvivable levels of carbon monoxide underground.

The men had been trained to attempt to escape in an emergency, so it was thought that if any had managed to put on a self-rescue breathing kit they would have headed for daylight down the stone tunnel. If any had survived but found their path to the tunnel blocked, they would have perished anyway because Pike had not constructed an effective emergency exit.

In addition to the list of factors suggesting there could be no survivors, Hughes and others knew the mine would inevitably explode again if nothing was done to quell the fire.

By the Sunday – day two – Mines Rescue leaders and specialists from Solid Energy put it to a meeting at the scene that the mine should be urgently sealed to starve the fire of oxygen and begin the process of stabilisation so the men’s bodies could be recovered. By then, Wellington was also aware of a “huge and significant combustion” and the likelihood of further explosions.

But the sealing proposal met a “dead hand”, according to Craig Smith, Solid Energy’s underground manager and Mines Rescue trustee. The implications of Hughes’s gas analysis was lost on the police, and Department of Labour officials on site made it clear their superiors in Wellington had ruled out sealing unless there was “zero” chance of survivors. Any move to seal would be blocked by a prohibition notice under the Health and Safety in Employment Act.

Smith acknowledged that some, including Queensland mines rescue expert Darren Brady and Pike’s production manager Steve Ellis, had been opposed to sealing. But the police, as the agency in control, had to be held accountable for their “ignorance” of the hazards and for failing to enable an informed and expert analysis, he told the commission. The police should have recognised they were “out of their depth from a technical point of view” and deferred to those who had the knowledge.

Pike’s statutory mine manager, Doug White, was also acutely aware of the likelihood of further explosions, and attempted to convince the authorities of the need for urgent action. By the Monday he was pushing for the Queensland Government’s GAG machine to be brought over so that it was available to make the mine inert if it was decided this was the best course of action. This was rejected by police and Department of Labour officials.

He tried again the following day at a meeting with Knowles and Police Commissioner Howard Broad – and attended by Whittall – where he attempted to explain that further explosions were inevitable if no action was taken.

“It was made clear to me the GAG would not be ordered as it would appear that people had given up hope,” said White.

The families, meanwhile, heard nothing of either the fire or the frustrated efforts to have the mine sealed so bodies could be recovered. At briefings, Whittall spoke of a “heating”, which he likened to a “pile of smouldering rags” or a small pilot flame on a gas hob – a matter that was “of no great consequence to the potential recovery or rescue of the men”, he told the commission last week.

Meanwhile, specialists at the scene battled to establish more gas- sampling sites to build a clearer picture of what was happening underground. With the mine’s gas monitoring system destroyed, desperate measures were used to obtain the first samples from the top of the ventilation shaft – including attaching a St John Ambulance stomach pump to a long tube to suck up a sample.

The most critical task was drilling a borehole from which to obtain samples from deeper inside the mine, an undertaking organised and overseen by Solid Energy technical manager Dean Fergusson. Yet the process was surrounded by a fog of bureaucracy.

Risk-assessment documentation was bounced from the mine site to the police in Greymouth, who sent it to local Department of Labour officials for input, and on up to police headquarters, who asked for comments from Department of

Labour officials in Wellington, before being sent back down the line to the people at the scene. One risk assessment was rejected because it was “too technical” and didn’t list all the hazards.

Lawyers for the Department of Labour and police argued at the commission that the risk-assessment process didn’t hold up the task of drilling through the mountainside into the mine. Smith retorted that the officials had been concerned with form rather than substance, and that the rigmarole had added needlessly to the stress of those engaged in critical work.

Within the convoluted chain of command, key players appeared to be locked in a bubble of ignorance about the role of other agencies. Police Assistant Commissioner Grant Nicholls, who was in overall command in Wellington, came to the operation with no knowledge of the Mines Rescue Trust and had to do a Google search to find it. By day four after the first explosion, he decided to assemble an expert panel to advise the police, and began scouring the globe for suitable candidates. Yet under his nose at the mine site was a line-up of the best mining expertise in Australasia – people who, like Craig Smith, were increasingly angry and frustrated at the lack of realism and coherence in the decision-making process.

At least some members of the police team thought the Department of Labour had “ultimate authority” over actions taken at the scene, but the department thought its role was merely advisory. The police, meanwhile, were taking “mining 101” instruction from two departmental inspectors, one of whom had no mining expertise.

The flow of vital information was hit-and-miss. Those on site had seen the CCTV footage of the blast on the first afternoon and regarded it as a key piece of information. Yet Whittall and Knowles didn’t see it until the Monday and the families were not shown it until the Tuesday. The Department of Labour – which was blocking moves to seal until there was zero chance of survivors – made no effort to analyse the available facts to establish whether the conditions underground were survivable.

By the Saturday morning – 16 hours after the first explosion – Fire Service officials were advising the top brass in Wellington to prepare for mass casualties, and by the following day were advising Nicholls to be “realistic about the situation”. But Whittall told the commission no one ever came to him with the view that the men were likely dead, and he continued to share with the families his optimistic hopes of rescue.

There was also widespread confusion about who was in charge. Mine manager Doug White initially thought he was incident controller on site, but then realised the police had taken over. Craig Smith initially thought production manager Steve Ellis was incident controller. It was several days before Trevor Watts, general manager of Mines Rescue, discovered Gary Knowles (who was the incident controller) was based in Greymouth, not at the mine site.

Not that it really mattered where ­Knowles was based, or even what his nominal role was. Although he fronted the families and media twice a day – and was vilified by many family members for a perceived defensiveness and lack of empathy – all the decision-making powers resided with Nicholls in Wellington. And, with no knowledge of mining, he was reliant on Whittall for interpretation of what was happening at the site. He was, observed commission chair Justice Graham Panckhurst, “neither one thing nor the other”.

Five days after the first explosion, the predictions of Robin Hughes, Doug White and others were borne out. The mine exploded again, with more fury than the first time. Over the following four days it blew up twice more.
More than 10 months on, the bodies of the 29 miners remain underground, and their families’ torment has solidified into anger.

For full coverage of the Pike River Mine Inquiry, click here.