Sifting through the wreckage

Even a commercial vessel under professional command would be foolhardy approaching the island in the conditions prevailing on December 15 last year. But this was another boat carrying refugees, doing everything wrong in difficult seas, trailing thick black smoke from her funnel as it fell out of sight in the swell, labouring south at about two knots.

Bev Orchard, an islander in her 70s, caught sight of the boat about 5.15 am. She was concerned but assumed the problem was in hand. Islanders call these boats “sneakers”: they turn up unexpectedly after crossing an ocean Australia claims to have under blanket surveillance. SIEV (suspect illegal entry vessel) 221 was another of many. No credible evidence has emerged that its arrival was anything but a surprise.

At sunrise, people were waking in their posh houses along the cliffs and saw the boat heading straight for them. Had it then turned east it would have reached sheltered waters. But about 5.30am, when it was within 200 metres off the cliffs, it turned west towards Rocky Point and Flying Fish Cove.

From that moment, catastrophe was written all over the scene.

A customs officer, Ross Martin, was watching from the balcony of his room at the Mango Tree Lodge. He rang his boss Leslie Jardine at 5.43am and six minutes later Jardine rang the Customs National Operations Centre. Calls were flying in all directions at this point but Jardine's was crucial because the centre had at its disposal two ships sheltering in the lee of the island: the customs vessel Triton and a patrol boat, HMAS Pirie.

Once under power, they were only about half an hour from Rocky Point. As the catastrophe unfolded before the horrified islanders, they took for granted the ships were already on their way. They weren't.

Martin followed the boat along the cliff and joined the crowd gathering at the Golden Bosun Tavern. By this time, triple-0 calls were coming in to the West Australian police from the island and the boat. So harrowing are the pleas and screams from SIEV 221 that the recordings of these calls have never been released. The same screams could be heard from the garden of the tavern as the boat drew even closer to Rocky Point.

Fifty people would drown that morning in the “washing machine surf” along that jagged cliff. These horrors have been cited ever since as justification for taking even tougher measures to stop the boats. In the face of so many deaths, brutal deterrents might seem humane if they dissuaded people from risking their lives on these dangerous journeys.

But did they have to die? The inquest into the deaths that has been running since March before the West Australian coroner Alastair Hope has heard evidence that suggests there was time to avert this tragedy, time to save more - perhaps all - of the 50 lives lost.

The evidence suggests key decision-makers did not grasp the danger facing SIEV 221 soon enough; equipment failed; priorities were muddled; and time was lost all the way along the line. Servicemen would put their lives at risk in the end to pull these people from the sea. But they came too late.

MINUTES are everything in this story, yet three-quarters of an hour had passed since SIEV 221 was first sighted and the ships sheltering on the far side of the island still knew nothing about it. Several attempts by islanders to contact the Pirie by radio from 5.45am onwards failed. Though Customs, the navy and Border Protection command all knew about SIEV 221 by this time, nothing had yet reached the Pirie and the Triton.

They were at Ethel beach waiting for the storm to die down. The Pirie, an Armidale-class patrol boat under the command of Mitchell Livingstone, was "nursing" the empty hulk of SIEV 220 picked up the day before. It was to be scuttled at sea once the weather broke. Meanwhile, it couldn't be anchored and couldn't be left to drift. Four sailors were on board, keeping her engines running, heading it into the swell.

Livingstone said the hulk was his "main concern" and he would admit leaving it behind at Ethel beach only very reluctantly. A problem had developed with her steering and by 6am Livingstone had sent one of his two RHIBs - seven-metre long rigid-hulled inflatable boats - over to the hulk with two fresh sailors and an engineer to fix the rudder.

The Triton, under the command of Andy Stammers, was waiting for Flying Fish Cove to reopen so he could disembark 109 asylum seekers he had collected from Ashmore Reef. He had been waiting off Ethel Beach for days and had no idea how much longer he would have to wait.

Stammers took the first call about SIEV 221 at 6am from the Australian Maritime Security Operations Centre. "There was no mention whatsoever," Stammers told the Australian Federal Police "that the SIEV off Rocky Point was in danger or distress." He then contacted Livingstone and suggested he investigate the sighting because the Pirie lay some five nautical miles closer to Rocky Point.

Livingstone agreed but made no haste. He waited for his RHIB. The hiatus that followed was ignored by the joint parliamentary committee into the Christmas Island wreck that reported in June this year and had not been a focus of the coroner's investigation until, late in the piece, the feisty Adelaide barrister Claire O'Connor arrived to represent the survivors.

Under cross examination from O'Connor, Livingstone admitted that had he moved off immediately after hearing from the Triton a bit after 6am, help would have reached Rocky Point 10 to 15 minutes before SIEV 221 hit the cliff. "It might have been crucial to saying some lives?" asked O'Connor. "Potentially," conceded Livingstone. "I think about this all the time."

Back on the other side of the island at 6.09am, SIEV 221 lost power. This was not sabotage. Her engine had failed during the night, restarted at about 5am but now spluttered and died. The crew gave up trying to steer. Winds gusting to 30 knots in a four- to five-metre swell were pushing the helpless vessel towards cliffs less than 100 metres away.

At that moment, NORCOM (Defence Force's northern command) in Darwin contacted the Pirie and told Livingstone there was a "critical contact of interest" at Rocky Point which required his immediate attention. But he was not told SIEV 221 had lost power or that a SOLAS (safety of life at sea) situation threatened. Livingstone woke the ship and ordered preparations for an "imminent boarding" but he continued to wait for the RHIB to return from the hulk.

On the cliff top, horrified islanders were gathering lifejackets. The hospital was preparing to implement its disaster plan. Everything hinged on the Pirie and Triton. The only other rescue boats on the island - useless anyway in storms of this kind - were out of action.

NORCOM was soon chivvying Livingstone along. But this apparent impatience did not translate into ordering the Triton to the scene. Stammers had already woken his crew in anticipation of such a call and alerted his people to a possible SOLAS situation. But the Triton would not be asked to move for another 25 minutes.

NORCOM called Livingstone a third time at 6.21am. He learnt - 10 minutes after the event - that SIEV 221 had lost power. This was now a SOLAS alert. He was asked to set off immediately with both his sea boats. Livingstone radioed the RHIB at the hulk to return to the Pirie. It appears the 10 minutes he spent recovering the RHIB lost him the last opportunity of reaching SIEV 221 before it smashed into the cliff.

At 6.32am the Pirie set out at full speed for the other side of the island. Two minutes later her port engine automatically shut down. The cause of the failure - a small chunk of metal drawn into the turbo impeller - would not be discovered until the ship returned to Darwin. The Pirie was left limping through the swell at 16 knots.

At last the Triton was ordered to Rocky Point and Livingstone, realising the RHIBs could travel faster than his crippled ship, turned the Pirie to allow them to be launched. At 6.38am they disappeared, driven as fast as they possibly could into five-metre swells and winds about 30 knots.

The crews were extraordinarily brave. These manoeuvres put their lives in peril. But only minutes after the RHIBs set out for Rocky Point, still invisible in the distance, SIEV 221 hit the cliff. One witnesses said: "The resounding crack that came from the hull, went straight through to the bone."

SIEV 221 was an Indonesian fishing boat about 15 metres long with a little steering house and an engine in the bilge. On board were 58 men and boys and 34 females aged from two months to 54 years. Before setting out the previous Sunday from Jakarta, these Iraqis and Iranians were told the usual lies about the vessel being comfortable, safe and properly equipped.

But there was no safety equipment on board apart from 20 or 30 life jackets. Some of the crew were fishermen but none had attempted a voyage like this before. The weather every day of the three-day voyage was dreadful. The only other boat they saw all the way down was the one that took the captain off once they entered Australian waters. He had left them the night before to make the last, most dangerous lap on their own.

The hull survived first impact. Ropes and life jackets were being thrown from the cliff top. Already people were drowning in the waves breaking over the deck. On the third impact with the cliff at about 6.51am the boat broke apart showering the sea with people - living and dead - wood, bags, ropes, tarpaulins, clothing, backpacks and life jackets all doused in diesel.

The RHIBs did not arrive for another 10 minutes.

Jet boats, they could not manoeuvre in the debris for fear of stalling and there was the ever-present danger of crushing people in that messy surf. So the crews worked from a distance with makeshift equipment, throwing lifejackets and life rings on ropes towards the survivors and then hauling them aboard. High winds and high seas made this extremely difficult. No one doubts the courage of those engaged in the operation.

As the RHIBs filled with injured and traumatised people, they were frequently in danger of capsizing. After gathering 18 survivors in 20 minutes, the boats headed for the Pirie which now lay 600 hundred metres off Rocky Point. From cliff to ship in that weather took 10 valuable minutes.

One of the puzzles of this story is why Livingstone sent out the RHIBs with so many military on board: the more sailors, the less room for survivors. The WA inquest was told a crew of four is standard for rescues. But Livingstone had sent six men in one RHIB and eight in the other as if preparing to board and seize a SIEV.

The boats went back for a second sweep with smaller crews about 7.45am. Both RHIBs began sucking up debris. One was out of action by about 8am. Her radio also failed. By this time, two tenders from the Triton had joined the rescue effort. One was incapacitated by debris almost at once and was hauled back on board the Triton at 8.10am. That left only one tender and one RHIB to continue the search.

More than an hour had passed since SIEV 221 hit the cliff. The weather was still appalling. Debris and bodies had been washed 800 metres along the cliff. The screaming had died down. People were still dying in front of rescuers' eyes - too far into the debris to be reached and too exhausted to try swimming to the boats. Bodies were floating everywhere.

A last handful of survivors were brought to the Triton at 8.30am and half an hour later the final seven were lifted onto the Pirie. After that, the sea yielded only bodies. This was the tally: 41 were rescued from the sea; one managed to save himself by jumping onto the cliff; 30 bodies were eventually recovered; but no trace was found of the other 20 people who died that morning.

This is the worst shipwreck in Australian waters since the London steamer Quetta ripped its hull open on a rock in the Torres Strait in 1890.

The politics of the wreck of SIEV 221 were swift and ruthless. Even while the rescue was under way, the opposition immigration spokesman, Scott Morrison, declared the catastrophe highlighted "how very dangerous is this business of people coming by boat and why it is important that we do everything possible to ensure these boats don't come in this way''.

He and his leader, Tony Abbott, made hay with accusations of waste and indulgence when survivors - including children - were flown to Sydney for the victims' funerals. The wreck continues to be cited by the government to justify exporting refugees to Malaysia and by the opposition for reviving the ''Pacific Solution'' on Nauru and Manus islands.

Meanwhile, the coroner Alastair Hope is pursuing a number of questions arising from the wreck that go beyond the tardy response of the navy and customs. Chief among these is why ''sneakers'', boats like SIEV 221, can make their way to Christmas Island undetected.

Malcolm McCusker, QC, counsel assisting the coroner, said in his opening address the inquest would pursue "the reasons for not putting in place effective measures to detect and intercept such vessels, including but not limited to land-based radar, improvements to JORN, the radar system, accessing satellites or aerial surveys, surveillance and lookouts, who made those decisions and why".

A last witness is to be heard by the inquest a few days before Christmas. Counsel for the Commonwealth, the navy and the survivors are preparing final submissions. Alastair Hope will give his findings at some point in the new year.