But sadness at soldiers' tragedy - six dead

Ruapehu Bulletin, 17 August 1990, Page 3

But sadness at soldiers' tragedy - six dead

The bodies of six soldiers who froze to death after being trapped on Mt Ruapehu in a five day blizzard were flown off the mountain yesterday moming.

A trip that began as a routine army training exercise ended in tragedy when six men froze to death a mere 150 metres from a hut which would have offered them lifesaving shelter. They were: Brett William Barker; Mark James Madigan; Stuart Keith McAlpine; Jason Ross Menhennet (all army privates) and naval rating Jeffrey Royden Boult, from the HMNS Tamaki. The five survivors rescued from the mountain on Monday were : Rayner Berger; Grant David Mumby;Sonny Wayne Terure (all army privates) and instructor corporal Brent Gavin Jaggaro. The other two men, instructor sergeant Geoffrey Wayne Snowden and private Brendon Drew Burchell, left the other eleven to set off down the mountain to raise the alarm on Sunday. For most of this week the bodies of the six remained buried in snow and ice at The Col, a

saddle between the peak of Paretetaitonga and The Dome. Continuing foul weather hindered attempts to remove the bodies. Inquiry An Army court of inquiry, which is expected to take 10 days, started on Wednesday morning to try to find what caused the disaster which struck the 13-member team. The court of inquiry will be held behind closed doors, lead by Lieutenant Colonel Bernie Isherwood of Auckland. Other members are Waiouru's Major Paul Robinson, Navy Leuitenant Commander Colin Quincey of Auckland and British Army Major David Ferguson who is in New Zealand on an exchange scheme. What was to be a five day adventure training exercise began on Thursday last week. The weather turned to blizzard conditions on Saturday afternoon and they dug two snow caves and a snow dome. Once inside, it took four of them

to shovel the windblown snow from the caves. Some of the soldiers began to suffer from hypothermia and they all moved into one cave. In the morning they had to dig nearly three metres of snow to get out. A break in the weather saw the whole party head for the Dome Shelter but made just 200 metres before conditions whited out again. It was there they dug a trench and got into their survival bags. Three hours later they tried again for the Dome Shelter but the conditions were impossible. Screaming winds Further attempts to build a snow dome were thwarted by screaming winds. They dug another trench which is where they were found by Ski Patrol searchers on Monday afternoon, after two of the 13 made a break to seek help. Sergeant Geoff Snowden and Private Brendon Burchell made an 11 hour dash for help, making it to the Whakapapaiti hut, then across to Whakapapa Village.

Five of the eleven left there who showed signs of life were taken by the ski patrol rescue party to the Dome Shelter. They spent the night there and were treated for hypothermia and frostbite. The next morning they were led down to the Whakapapa skifield. Army staff later said weather conditions meant the motionless bodies could not be carried off the mountain. It was possible some may have been still alive, said an Army spokesperson. Searchers risk own lives The 20 searchers had risked their lives during the search, said team organiser Police Sergeant Daryl Nix Turnpage5

Soldiers describe ordeal

From page 3 The searcher's Snow Cats had to be left an hour and a halfs walk away from the Dome Shelter because they could go no further. At one stage, one of the snow machines had almost toppled over a ledge and searchers walking back to the machines, with their lights on, had had trouble locating them in the conditions. After Monday's rescue, Police announced publicly that five of the men had been saved but said they still did not know where the other six were. Sergeant Darryl Nix said police had not told of the other six because they wanted the dead men's next of kin to be told before the public. Mother nature Asked to talk about their ordeal, once safely back at Waiouru Army Hospital, one survivor blamed Mother Nature for what went wrong. Sergeant Snowden was asked how many tricky moments there were on the run for help, he said "thousands". Journalists, who were allowed to talk to the survivors on Wednesday, were requested not to ask the men exactly what happened and most of the survivors did not want to discuss the deaths of their friends. The men were clearly in shock and had little memory of time span - one thought they had been rescued on Wednesday (today) not Monday. Sonny Terure, who suffered severe frostbite to his hands said the eleven men huddled together and kept saying to themselves: "Just gotta wait till the rescuers come up and find us." Asked about the six who succumbed to hypothemia, his only comment was: "They just lay there and that was that." Mr Terure said it was about lunchtime Monday, just hours before rescuers found them, that he began to give up hope. "There's no way now, I

thought. I could just move around but my body was real weak." Meanwhile, Grant Mumby was starting to lose track of time and, unable to open a can of food because of frozen hands, had gone several days without food. "We sat there thinking of silly little things, and of our families and girlfriends as we packed our stuff around us to try to get some shelter.' Low moral Mr Snowden and Mr Burchell's departure to try and get help did little to raise Mr Mumby's morale. "I really didn't think that they'd make it...I thought it was all over.' For eleven hours Mr Snowden and Mr Burchell clambered down the mountain - all the time telling themselves: "We 're going to make it" Mr Snowden evidently believed that the fact that they made it to the bottom to raise help from Whakapapa Ski Field staff was due to something more than their skill. Mr Snowden told of the time he stepped off a ledge, because he could not see it in front of him, and fell 10 feet. "I now think back at how many hundred foot drop ledges there are on that mountain that I missed.

"I only fell 10 feet - hey, I was supposed to get down that mountain." Asked what he thought was the cause of the whole tragedy, he said: "I keep thinking about Mother Nature, but I just don't know.' 'We're told that in this line of training in the outdoors the 'bullets' can come back at you. "If you fire a rifle at a target, the target doesn't fire back. The mountains do. You're at the mercy of all the conditions. "Something like this is a scar on your life..we'll never forget it "But you have to try to put it behind you and get on with life.' Mr Snowden said he did not notice any weaknesses in thc trainees and believed they worked well as a team. Forecast Waiouru Sergeant Major Ian Newman said the weather forecast on Thursday, the day the group left for Ruapehu, had been fine except for strong gusty winds expected to hit on Saturday and die out on Sunday. If the forecast had been for the atrocious conditions which did in fact occur at the weekend, the exercise would have been postponed, he said. Waiouru army camp commandant Colonel

Phil Maguire said the court of inquiry would determine whether the cause had been a procedural problem or the weather. Colonel Maguire defended the equipment the trainees were. given, saying "they were better equipped than 90 per cent of people who go up a mountain.' Radios Mr Newman conceded the army had been looking at getting radios, which patch into park rangers and department of conservation radios, for such trainees. However there had been delays in obtaining them, he said. Such radios would have done little to prevent the weekend's deaths, he said, because poor weather meant rescue teams would not have been able to get up the mountain till Monday, even if they had been alerted earlier. Mr Newman said the trainees on the course had undergone basic army training but the five-day Ruapehu course was their first introduction to mountain survival training. Though the trainees were inexperienced in such training, the instructors were highly experienced professiorials, he said.