Bigie, Allan Maka; Mooka, Donald; Gaidan-Banu, Gina Laiana Precilla; Mooka, Claude; Mooka, Telcy Patricia Elizabeth (Illyzaveth)…
Deceased
Allan Maka Bigie, Donald Mooka, Gina Laiana Precilla Dilaila Gaidan-Banu, Claude Mooka, Telcy Patricia Elizabeth (Illyzaveth) Mooka
Date of death
2019-07-31
Finding date
2021-04-30
Cause of death
Presumed drowned at sea
AI-generated summary
Five people drowned when their 7-metre banana boat capsized in rough seas in the Torres Strait on 31 July 2019. The vessel was unsuited to the deteriorating weather conditions (30-knot winds, 2-metre swells), and critically, none of the occupants wore life jackets despite safety equipment being available on board. The master had not operated a similar vessel for approximately 5 years and the boat had a difficult-to-manoeuvre loose tiller. The decision to continue travelling into darkness and severe weather, combined with failure to deploy safety equipment or use the operational EPIRB, proved fatal. Key clinical lesson: risk assessment and decision-making under pressure in remote settings require robust safety protocols, community education about equipment use, and recognition of individual capability limitations.
AI-generated summary and tagging — may contain inaccuracies; refer to original finding for legal purposes.
Error types
Contributing factors
- Vessel unsuited to weather conditions
- Deteriorating weather not anticipated or acted upon
- No life jackets worn by occupants despite availability
- Safety equipment (EPIRB, flares) not deployed
- Operator inexperience with banana boat type (5 years since last use)
- Vessel had difficult-to-manoeuvre loose tiller
- Decision to continue into darkness and severe weather
- Poor mobile phone coverage prevented emergency communication
- Unsurveyed waters and strong unpredictable tides
- Cultural practice of not wearing safety equipment
Coroner's recommendations
- Enhancement of weather reporting in the northern Torres Strait area through additional meteorological stations
- Improvement of mobile phone reception infrastructure, particularly additional cellular towers in Boigu and Dauan Islands
- Enhancement of search and rescue capabilities including FLIR thermal imaging for police vessels and rescue helicopters
- Review of pilot flight hour restrictions during aerial search operations
- Community education and cultural change initiatives regarding carrying and wearing marine safety equipment, via local television advertising similar to community health projects
- Consideration of recommissioning ferry services or providing affordable alternate transport to outer islands such as Dauan Island
- Education and awareness programs about risks of travelling in severe weather conditions and at night
- Familiarity training with safety devices such as EPIRB
Full text
Related cases
Source and disclaimer
This page reproduces or summarises information from publicly available findings published by Australian coroners' courts. Coronial is an independent educational resource and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of any coronial court or government body.
Content may be incomplete, reformatted, or summarised. All court orders for redaction and non-publication are respected; documents with technically defective redaction have been excluded from the database entirely. Always refer to the original court publication for the authoritative record.
Copyright in original materials remains with the relevant government jurisdiction. AI-generated summaries and tagging are for educational purposes only, may contain inaccuracies, and must not be treated as legal documents. We welcome feedback for correction —