NZAC - Deaths on Mt Taranaki, Oct 2013

[Uncle Rumple]

The NZ ALpine Club have released their report on a tragic incident which occurred last year:

"Nicole Sutton and Hiroki Ogawa died after bivouacking near the summit of Mt Taranaki on 28 October 2013. Nicole and Hiorki were part of a larger Auckland Section, New Zealand Alpine Club, trip that had travelled from Auckland to Mt Taranaki for Labour Weekend, begininng their climb on the morning of Saturday 26 October. Despite extensive efforts by the Police and LandSAR, weather conditons prevented rescue teams from reaching the bivouac site until Monday morning. Hiroki was already deceased and Nicole was critically ill and died several hours later"

Findings, including a link to the Coroner's report are here:

https://alpineclub.org.nz/section-resou ... i-incident

[wayno]

news summary of coroners report
http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-n ... for-rescue

[wayno]

this whole scenario played out in the media , with a blow by blow description of events... it was heart breaking, following the account of the communication between the rescuers and the stranded climbers. and the frustrations of the rescuers being beaten back from reaching them.
what these reports dont cover was the fact that there were who dug a snow cave and who were below the two stranded climbers,
they were able to extract themselves after the first night and get themselves back to safety.

[izogi]

It's a shame that the media mostly concentrates on the emotional aspect of text messages and final communications and stuff. I think the most significant aspect of the findings in both reports is the way in which the accident was set up to begin with, and everything happening around the edges.

The wider group of 16 had some substantial leadership issues. The began climbing early in the morning after a long drive and very little sleep, and almost no time to re-group and think about what they were doing, nor what gear each person was taking for themselves and for the group. They were still only deciding who'd go up the East Ridge minutes before they left. Nobody was clear on who was taking responsibility or making decisions, if anyone, despite there being major clear differences in experience between group members, and the likeliness that some would be looking at others for responsibility.

There had been discussions amongst the more senior members of a definite bailout time to avoid weather, but either nobody actually looked at their watch, or they did but paid no attention, perhaps because they incorrectly assumed that the more experienced people knew what they were doing. By the time one part of the 10-strong East Ridge group decided to turn around to avoid some horrendous incoming conditions, several hours after the predetermined bailout time, it was too late for them to clearly communicate to those up front about what they'd seen and why they were turning, and so the group split as a consequence of the most 'senior' person in that group being in a form of firefighting mode to protect everyone near him. The group of 4 over the summit had a serious accident near the summit (a 150 metre slide) before everything else, very possibly a consequence of fatigue from little sleep the night before. The other part of the group that had turned back was also taking high risks on their way down, and it was determined to be lucky that there weren't multiple other fatal incidents.

It was after all that happened that being caught for multiple days in atrocious conditions, being unable to dig a proper trench or cave near the summit, became an issue. Inadequate equipment and decisions played a part here, but there's no way they ever should have been in that situation to begin with if things had gone more cohesively. Hopefully all the recommendations about standardising their trip planning resources and education are taken on board, both by the NZAC and by any other clubs and formal and informal groups who run comparable types of trips.

[wayno]

they were told everyone was responsible for themselves. right from the outset, they werent functioning as a group... despite the fact several members were on their first climb outside of a training course. there were assumptions made that everyone would manage their own decision making and would be responsible themselves to work out what they needed to do to go up or down.. in reality most of the inexperienced members were still queueing off the experienced members of the group, and for a long time they were locked into getting to the summit despite the severe decline in the weather conditions...
i'd be interested in a psychologists opinion.. was this obsessive compulsive disorder? summit fever? people being "in the zone" where they are so focused on the task at hand they have lost sight of the overall situation, where the ability of the group to return safely was declining fast by the hour...
Hillary always said you havent climbed a mountain if you havent returned back down safely.
it was sound advice, keep your eyes on the bigger picture and dont let the desire to get to the summit overshadow the situation your in to the point where you are jeopardising your ability to get back.
the alpine club report wasnt sentimental in it's apraisal of the situation. there were major, multiple systematic failures in how the group was run and how it carried out the trip from inception to implementation to final disintegration.
trips that are sensible and pull back from adverse conditions don't make the news so you dont see a public analysis of what successful trips look like in the mainstream media.
ultimately it was one person who did take charge of the slower people on the east ridge route who probably saved their lives by getting them to turn back before the summit when he was convinced it was unsafe for them to continue up with the deteriorating weather and their slow pace and the advancement of time

[icefest]

i'd be interested in a psychologists opinion.. was this obsessive compulsive disorder? summit fever? people being "in the zone" where they are so focused on the task at hand they have lost sight of the overall situation,

I'm not a psychologist, but I've just finished my psych rotation and sat my psych exam. From all there information given, they don't qualify to both Obsessive compulsive disorder not obsessive compulsive personality disorder. At least according to the DSM5 criteria.

I suspect you've hut the nail on the head regarding the inexperience and 'summit fever'. I know I've felt like that and the combination of beginners and advanced climbers without any prearranged co-ordination makes for a dangerous climb.

[wayno]

one analyss of the situation is they persisted climbing to the top because once there they would have access to a faster route down the northern side of the mountain, much faster than the eastern route they had come up... but in the end teh weather and hypothermia precluded the two of them from going down that route at all, in part at least because they exposed themselves even more to the harsh weather by persisting with the climb to the summit., the sharks tooth isnt easy to get over, they should have gone round it rather than persisted with going over it at least.
the climb technially would normally be well within the capability of the experienced climbers up there. which would have influenced their decision to persist as well. but this wasnt a normal climb with the extreme weather conditions

[GPSGuided]

Sad to read how the tragedy grew from little things. OCs would have been much more detail orientated. Not here.

[wayno]

the "swiss cheese" safety model of human error that lead to accidents

http://tramper.co.nz/?view=topic&id=6951

[GPSGuided]

Skimmed through the report. Didn't know earlier that the army Iroquois were used in the SAR, instead of the local SAR helicopter. Given they heard the sound and have indicated clear weather, how heart breaking.

[izogi]

The Taranaki Rescue Helicopter (and probably most of the others) is far superior to the Iroquois for this type of thing, both in ability for where they can get to in mountainous environments, and crew training, but it sounds like they had some techinical problems with an indicator light going off at a bad time. It sounds as if it might not have made much of a difference in this case, though, given how strong the wind was.

Back in 2012 the Taranaki Rescue Helicopter Trust was facing insolvency and permanent grounding because it couldn't find enough funding. My understanding is that they're normally able to invoice Police or ACC or Maritime NZ or whoever for individual operations where they're called in, but I guess there are also lots of extra overheads just for keeping it up and available. I think they sorted all of that funding with a restructure before this happened, though. This incident was about year after the worst of it.