Source: Maritime New Zealand
The Interislander ferry Kaitaki blackout event, when it lost power south of Wellington in January 2023, was a close call, and would have been traumatising for those onboard when the ferry lost power.
As soon as the MAYDAY call was relayed, Maritime NZ’s Rescue Coordination Centre (RCCNZ) – (which is the lead for mass rescue coordination and safety of life) – initiated the mass rescue plan as intended, and as acknowledged in TAIC’s report.
Maritime NZ Director, Kirstie Hewlett says RCCNZ’s trained and qualified search and rescue officers quickly coordinated the movement of response assets (aircraft, boats and land support) and formed an Emergency Coordination Centre out at the RCCNZ with the relevant agencies involved.
“Once the ferry regained power, it maintained oversight until it safely came alongside at Wellington,” Ms Hewlett says.
While we are confident our RCCNZ, the frontline safety of life function, was mobilised as soon as possible, we accept that a Maritime Incident Response Team (MIRT), our back-office function stood up in large incidents, should have been formally declared at the outset of the incident consistent with our response policy.
“However, we believe the Commission’s finding that the lack of a formal MIRT declaration would have adversely affected our ability to respond promptly had the situation escalated, misses the pulling together of key facts,” Ms Hewlett says.
While not formally declared, the necessary functions of a MIRT were in fact mobilised by Maritime NZ and in operation until the ferry was in Port. The Duty Controller located to RCCNZ, as did necessary support people, and other key capabilities were supporting remotely. The National Coordination Centre (activated with the weather events on that weekend) was alerted to the event. The Minister’s Office was aware of the situation, and the Director was being kept updated on the events.
Given the fact the RCCNZ, which does not require a MIRT, was carrying out its role as intended, and the functions of a MIRT were informally in place, calling a MIRT at a late stage, once the engines engaged, would have made no difference in practice to this event.
Consistent with any incident, we carried out post incident debriefs to learn from the event and have proactively undertaken several improvement actions. This has included regular exercising of mobilisation at the beginning of an event, to ensure MIRTs are formally called consistent with our policies, along with a range of other improvements, which are outlined in the Commission’s report.
Maritime NZ agrees, or partially agrees, with the Commission’s recommendations relating to Maritime NZ, and, as acknowledged by TAIC the recommendations, they have already been completed or are well underway.
“We only partially accept the recommendation on strengthening salvage and rescue capability. While we can, and do, highlight what capabilities are needed for response in NZ, ensuring the resourcing of emergency towage response capability is not something in our power to make happen,” Ms Hewlett says.
More broadly, we investigated and prosecuted KiwiRail in relation to this event, to which KiwiRail plead guilty. We also undertook a deep dive audit on Kiwi Rail and its maintenance of critical componentry, alongside responding to an earlier TAIC safety insight into the incident in relation to the rubber joints.
Note:
Compliance action undertaken in relation to this incident: