The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Page 37

HEWS REVIEW 37 SATURDAY, AUGUST 21, 1999 www.smh.com.au Old problems have hampered the search for the four missing snow-boarders. Anthony Dennis reports. wwmd UliL 13 EGrnsrcBonciiB itqsciis :4 iv: '''-pJ weather conditions are not considered dangerous, the sheriff's department will call on local rescue services to deploy a bigger team of searchers on snow skis. Only in rare cases will the Army or the National Guard be brought in with thermal-imaging equipment. We find the equipment can be beneficial, but it can also throw up a lot of false leads," Woodman says.

"It will register animals in the snow we have a lot of elk and mountain cats out there and it can take a long time to eliminate those findings." Between 30 and 40 people die each year in back-country skiing and snowboarding accidents in the US, many beneath tonnes of snow in avalanches. Since three snowboarders died in an avalanche at the Mt Baker ski fields, north of Seattle in Washington State, all back-country skiers there must carry beacons and shovels and be accompanied by at least one other person. Mark Riley VERY season, the Summit County Sheriff 's .13 Department is called upon to conduct ZZ3 between one and five search and rescue missions a week in the wild back-country ski fields of the Rockies, looking for the adventurous and the foolhardy who have strayed far beyond the patrolled ski slopes. 'Normally, they find themselves in trouble either through ignorance or a lack of preparedness," says Captain Derek Woodman. The system employed to get a search under way in Summit County is fairly standard across US ski fields, with the local sheriff's offices assuming primary responsibility.

In most cases, a couple of scouts on ski-mobiles will quickly search the area where the lost skiers were last seen. If unsuccessful, a rescue helicopter service then does a one-hour search. If there is enough daylight and rr J5--s. -r lmost a decade and a half 111 apart the parallels appear Ml as confronting as they are I confounding. In atrocious Li mA weather, Stephen Crean, an experienced cross-country skier and the brother of Simon Crean, then a leading unionist and now federal politician, was lost in Kosciuszko National Park after embarking on a cross-country skiing trip from Charlottes Pass alone.

The search for him, which lasted more than a week in the middle of August, 1985, might, like the operation conducted for the four missing Sydney snowboarders, Dean Pin-cini, 25, Tim Friend, 25 and brothers Scott and Paul Beards-more, aged 26 and 24, have been heroic. But both have failed to uncover a single clue. Neither Crean nor the Sydney four should have been out there in conditions that make the back-country as dangerous for skiers as itan be for searchers. It was a year and a half before Crean's remains were found three kilometres from Thredbo Village on the Alpine Way that only emphasised the tragic circumstances of his disappearance. The police in charge of the Crean search were criticised for their failure to exploit local knowledge and experience; for their optimism, which might have resulted in initial complacency at Crean's safe return; the lack of experience of many of the police involved in the search; and poor co-ordination of air support required in the search.

There was a plan to establish a register of capable skiers who may be called upon to mount a search. Although aspects of the Crean search differed from that of the snowboarders, many, if not most, of these critical issues were again apparent in this month's search for the Sydney snowboarders. Fifteen years later none of these issues appears to have been addressed or resolved. Many among those venturing out into the wilderness believe that the chances of being rescued, should they experience difficulties, appear not to have greatly improved. Early in the first week, when asked if they had opened the men's vehicles parked at Thredbo and it is understood at Bullocks Flat, police at the Perisher Valley command centre expressed their surprise that this might be seen as routine.

It wasn't until Thursday that they finally opened one of the cars, discovering that the men had left behind mobile phones. Police had tried to contact the men on their mobile phones. There are indications that police may have been too optimistic of the men's safe return, believing that they were well equipped and experienced. The degree of difficulty for the Si. TERM DEPOSIT.

SURE BET 0- Term Deposits give you unmatched security in the shorter term. If you can't lock your money away for too long -but do want to get a solid return -they are the safest way to earn good interest on a cash investment. TERM DEPOSIT 2000 Police comb the Kosciuszko back-country for signs of the snowboarders. Inset, a search begins for Stephen Crean in 1985. Main photo by PAUL HARRIS has been the subject of conjecture all week.

Police co-ordinating the search were also criticised for relying on what has been described as inexpert assistance from media helicopters and the adventurer Dick Smith. Superintendent Charles Sanderson, briefly in charge of the operation, had admitted last weekend that police at the Perisher Valley command centre were able to summon Polair, but thathe police helicopters had a role in combating crime. On Thursday this week Police Commissioner Peter Ryan, who flew to Perisher Valley, said that the thermal imaging equipment would not have made a difference to the rescue. Ryan said: "If you point thermal imaging equipment to a snowfield and someone's under the snow, no body temperature is going to come through the snow." He conceded that a national asset list of all available emergency equipment would be useful. Alan Hodges, the head of Emergency Management Australia, a Federal Government agency which acts as a link between it and State governments to provide Federal personnel and equipment, says that he met the Deputy Police Commissioner, Jeff Jarratt, the State emergency operations controller, this Hurry.

This rate won't though it was offered in the first instance. It seems a shame." There are those, however, who think that the police may have simply been ill-informed. In 1985, John Illingworth, a director of Charlotte's Pass Village, was one of the critics of the failed search for Crean. He also doesn't consider that the authorities have learnt much from the lessons of that search. He says: "I feel extremely sorry for the parents, but it's going to happen again if something's not done.

The blame for the latest failed search has to be shared between the police and the National Parks Service. "For years National Parks have been pulling down the huts and turning the place into a wilderness. They have to decide whether they want it to be a wilderness or a park for people to use and enjoy. But if they're going to allow people out there without the refuges for them if they get into trouble then the people are going to get lost." The decision by NSW Police to use Victorian bushwalkers, who were unfamiliar with Kosciuszko National Park but trained in search and rescue, incensed locals who believed police insisted that they could only deploy searchers who were conversant with their search and rescue procedures. One local skier says: "Let the police be in charge but let them use the local people who know the area and not just their mates.

I'd like to see a list of how much time they've spent living and working in the snow and how much time they've spent operating equipment such as ski-doos. The whole process of search and rescue is done in such a haphazard manner." ilBNui a i equipped," says one experienced back-country skier. "To go out there without a tent was foolhardy for a start. The weather was very wet and not conducive to building a snow cave." There was further confusion during the first week as to whether the men had taken snowshoes with them. All three hiring locations at Jinda-byne and Thredbo, where the men might have hired the snowshoes, confirmed they had no record of the men renting anything other than ski-poles.

Initially police had said that the men didn't have snowshoes, then said they did have them, only to be contradicted by the families of the snowboarders. Back-country experts believe snowshoes are vital in the heavy snow conditions of the Kosciuszko National Park. A shovel, inscribed with the name had been lost and found this week in the search area, but because it had not been properly ruled out earlier, hours were lost in the search which by that stage had acquired an air of futility. Police overseeing the search were criticised for their eight-day delay in identifying an Australian Army aircraft fitted with prototype thermal imaging equipment that might have helped identify the missing men, though its efficacy in such searches Or week and will meet again in a month to discuss what capabilities NSW might want in future for a similar eventuality. On Wednesday, August 11, the first clear day of the search, Polair didn't arrive at Perisher Valley until close to midday, leaving the ABC television helicopter to be the principal platform for the aerial search.

Police conceded they would preferred Polair to have arrived sooner. But the symbolism of the skies full of privately operated helicopters, one of them owned by a well-intentioned adventurer, with only cameo appearances by Polair, didn't paint a picture of a dynamic search. Mr Peter Wachtel is the treasurer of the NSW Ski Patrol Inc, a body which represents members of ski patrols within NSW, and he is an accredited rescue service provider. He is one of more than a dozen Snowy Mountains skiers interviewed by the Herald over the past fortnight who support the concept of an "instant response" register that would allow local expertise and equipment to be deployed within hours, rendering it unnecessary for Victorians to have to make the long journey from across the border to participate in a search area that may be unfamiliar to them. He says: "I don't think there's been a great change in approach since the Crean search.

They haven't learnt any lessons. There hasn't been a proper, co-ordinated training program for rescuers or if there has it's been kept to a select group. "The local people, and particularly, ski patrollers with expertise, training and equipment have again not been asked to participate in the search or called upon to provide their personnel or equipment, even i 'ill unit Caii 1300 362 732 now, visit any Westpac branch or www. vvcstpac.com.au nn7 AUSTRALIA'S FIRST BANK WE'RE WITH YOU vv.vM-sipjc.im..m police in finding the four was, like that of the Stephen Crean disappearance, made more extreme by the weather and by the fact that they did not carry communications equipment, a tent or emergency beacons. The men had also failed to heed weather forecasts which clearly indicated foul weather on the day before and the morning of their departure.

On the Tuesday, August 10, of the first week of the search, Acting Inspector Martin Wookey, the officer appointed to command the search, told a reporter: "We do not hold any real fears for their safety. I expect them to walk out tomorrow when the weather clears." Police said they believed that the men were well equipped, a point universally dismissed by dozens of back-country skiers with snow-camping experience: "The police were under the delusion that the four missing men were well- Westpac Banking Corporation ARRN 007 457 141. 'This special rate is not available with any other special rate or bonus otter and is only available where interest is paid at maturity. The rate is current at time ot printing but is subject to change at any time. Government charges mav apply.

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