NZ volcano tragedy: tour Operators decided when visits were safe

Tour companies have acknowledged they operated with relative freedom in deciding if it was safe to visit the active volcano.

A boat belonging to White Island Tours is seen in Whakatane on Tuesday. Picture: AFP

Tour companies that ran helicopter and boat trips to White Island have acknowledged they operated with relative freedom in deciding if it was safe to visit the active volcano, as the legal battle over lia­bility for the deaths and injuries looms.

Leading New Zealand plaintiff lawyer Adina Thorn said she believed the country’s safety laws needed to be toughened and an inquiry was needed to establish why it was thought reasonable for tourists to be on an island with an active volcano. “It’s horrific, and obviously with the passage of time people will be asking questions here,” she said.

She said it was too early to begin trying to pin liability on any one party. However, she said the tour operators were “extremely close” to the matter, and the cruise ship could be liable depending on who managed the tour and how much they knew about the risks.

It was also too early to say whether the government could bear any responsibility, given the tours occurred on private land.

She said tourists could reasonably expect that if they were offered tours they would be safe.

While tour operators have indefinitely halted bookings for White Island under instruction from New Zealand’s civil defence ministry, two of the largest operators were yet to update their websites on Wednesday, which still allowed users to process a payment for the trips.

The running of tours to the privately owned White Island has until now relied on three different parties — the family trust that oversees the island, tour operators, and New Zealand Crown Research Institute body GNS Science.

The Buttle Family Trust sells licences that specify a port of departure and air or sea travel that tour companies can purchase to operate exclusively. Apart from releasing a brief statement, Peter Buttle, representing the trust, said the family had asked that a rahui, or restriction of access, be respected on the island.

Five different companies run tours to White Island, with the main tour operators being White Island Tours and Kahu, which run boat trips and helicopters respectively from Whakatane, as well as Volcanic Air, which runs helicopter trips from Rotorua.

The Australian understands that during peak seasons the larger helicopter companies could run 4-5 trips a day, while only two boat trips would run due to the distance. The smaller companies, which operate from helipads further away than Whakatane and Rotorua, run less frequent trips as the air travel costs make their trips more expensive and less popular.

The tour operators monitor volcanic warnings from GNS frequently, and while an escalation issued by GNS on November 18 from level 1 to level 2 did not trigger enough of an alarm to halt trips, tours are routinely postponed due to windy conditions.

A safety operations manager at Kahu tours, who did not provide her name, told The Australian that in the years she had worked at the company, a tour had never been cancelled due to a volcanic alert.

Before Monday’s eruption, wind predictions were so bad for Tuesday that Kahu was not planning on running trips over fears it couldn’t land.

“I’ve only seen level 2 once or twice before November, but it’s never something that stopped us from going,” the safety manager said.

“GNS issue the levels, and we always make sure to tell our customers. If they had issued a level 3 it would have been a completely different scenario.

“We wouldn’t be running tours at a three level.”

However, a GNS duty volcanologist told The Australian that a level 3 warning was issued only when an eruption was taking place, and that the last time a level 3 was issued was in April 2016 during a minor eruption.

White Island now sits at level 3 following Monday’s eruption.

Kahu was not operating a tour at the time of the eruption as the company did not have any bookings; however, its pilot, after hearing of the eruption, was the first in to the rescue effort on the island ahead of the authorities’ aircraft.

“We knew people on the island, so we went right in,” the safety manager said. “And now, morally, we wouldn’t go back in.”

Kahu is owned and run by former agricultural pilot Mark Law.

White Island Tours guide Hayden Marshall-Inman has been confirmed as one of the fatalities, and chairman of the company, Paul Quinn, has said: “We are focused on wrapping the necessary support around affected families and staff, all of whom are understandably distraught.

“There are many questions that are left to be answered but our priority at this time is on the welfare of those affected.”

Volcanic Air pilot Tim Barrow has been praised for flying to the scene about 10 minutes after the eruption where he and other staff helped rescue up to 10 visitors who were on the island.