Coroner: Radios may have helped avoid Ruapehu tragedy

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 8, Issue 377, 12 March 1991, Page 1

Coroner: Radios may have helped avoid Ruapehu tragedy

Radios might have saved the lives of the six military servicemen who died on Mount Ruapehu last year and the two army personnel in charge of the expedition were too inexperienced, the Taumarunui District Court has found.

The coroner Tim Scott said after hearing the evidence that if the party had been carrying radios the outcome of the expedition may have been different. He leveled no blame on the two instructors for their lack of experience. Mr Scott said the party seemed to be well

equipped apart from the lack of radios. He found that the six men died from hypothermia sometime between 4pm Sunday 12 August and 1pm 13 August. He said the weather forecast they received on 9 August did not seem to be "very drastic" but it

was unfortunate that they had not obtained later forecasts. Though he added that the actual forecasts, had they been available to the group, predicted better weather for the Sunday, which was the day the group got into extreme difficulties. "The military have now concluded, with the benefit of hindsight, that the instructors' own expertise probably should have been more than it was, and that is Turnpage2

Radios may have helped avert tragedy

Frompagel my conclusion also," said the coroner. The Army has adopted new civilian standards for the alpine training course, based at Waiouru, and alpine training will only be recommenced when instructors have reached those standards, the Bulletin was told last week. Whakapapa conservation officer Don Bogie told the court it might have been possible for the group to descend on the Saturday but he expressed concern at the high pupil-instructor ratio, even if the weather had been better. The Army believes the group made a serious mistake in leaving their snowcave, the court

heard in written information from the Army. The snowcave may not have collapsed, and it was common for snowcave ceilings to slump, which is one of the reasons why the group left the cave, the court heard.