Whakaari Eruption 2019

This episode discusses the tragic volcanic eruption of Whakaari Island on December 9, 2019. Host Andrew explores the sequence of events that led to the eruption during a guided tour, which resulted in 22 deaths and numerous injuries. The episode delves into the heroic efforts of survivors and rescuers, the aftermath of the disaster, and the legal consequences faced by the tour operators. It ends with an update on the current status of tours to the island and a call for listeners to engage with the show.

00:00 Introduction to Whakaari Island Eruption
00:40 Background on Whakaari Island and Tourism
02:58 The Day of the Eruption
06:32 The Eruption Unfolds
09:04 Immediate Aftermath and Rescue Efforts
12:47 Rescue Operations and Heroic Efforts
17:29 Long-term Impact and Legal Consequences
19:10 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

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Special thank you to Lunarfall Audio for producing and doing all the heavy lifting on audio editing since April 13, 2025, the Murder of Christopher Meyer episode https://lunarfallaudio.com/

Transcript

 Whakaari Island is an active volcano, 50 miles off the coast of Whakatane, a small coastal town on New Zealand's North Island during a guided tour of the Volcanoes Crater Lake on December 9th, 2019. It erupted. Eight people would never leave the island. So what happened? I'm Andrew, and this is History's a Disaster.

Tonight we are diving into the Whakaari Eruption that would ultimately claim 22 lives. F or White Island is an active stratovolcano off the coast of New Zealand. Now a stratovolcano is your typical cone shaped volcano that most people associate with. Well, volcanoes, most of it is underwater, making the crater at the top, easily accessible.

Whakatne is a small town of roughly 17,000 people and had set itself up as an adventure tourism destination. And going by the documentary I watched and pictures. It is an absolutely beautiful town offering all kinds of outdoor adventures from kayaking and rafting to fishing and speed belts, and of course, a trip to an active volcano, a volcano.

Clearly visible across the bay, rising up out of the water with its near constant white plume of steam coming from the crater lake. The tour groups like to play up the danger of the trip. However, this volcano was heavily monitored by the geological monitoring service, geo net, and they had a safety system in place with levels from zero to five.

Level three and above were considered two dangerous. And tours would not be ran in those conditions. And of course, probably because level three was an eruption, but I digress. Thousands of trips were made in relative safety and over a century, they had not a single person die on a tour. Making it sound much safer than other activities like bungee jumping or that thing where you jump off the building with a parachute base, jumping, whatever, and really it sounds much cooler.

Anyone can jump off a building with a rope on their leg, but how many people can say they walked around? The inside of an active volcano

in early December during peak tour season, geo nets set the level to two. They did not consider the volcano to be at risk of an eruption, so they were good to go. The morning of December 9th, white Island tours. Had multiple tours to FKA scheduled for the day, and most of these passengers were from a cruise ship, the ovation of the sea.

The last group to leave at 1130 aboard the Tua Whakaari took the 90 minute trip to land at the jetty on Whakaari at one o'clock. It would take nearly an hour. To run all the passengers ashore aboard Zodiac inflatable boats by 2:00 PM all 42 people of the tour and tour guides were ashore on the jetty. A tour group who came across on White Island Tours boat.

The Phoenix was finishing their walking tour and were getting back on board, starting to cruise around the island. For one last photo op, the first of the two groups brought over by volcanic air. A helicopter tour group were set to leave with the second group led by Brian DePauw. About 10 minutes behind them.

This was Brian's first solo trip with passengers to the island. The tour from the ARI split into two groups with Kelsey Waghorn and Jake Milbank, who was celebrating his 19th birthday, taking one group of 19th passengers, Hayden Marshall Inman. Who was also celebrating something that day, his 1111th trip to the island, and Tiffany Monge taking the other group of 19.

The tour would only last for about an hour to an hour and a half. Going up to the crater lake, the groups would follow one tour guide with the other following behind them. Everyone on these tours is required to wear a hard hat while on the island and carry a gas mask as they set out the smell of salt water and sulfur mixed in the air.

As they head off the concrete jetty, they walked on a barren landscape of gray rock, mud, and ash flowing into vibrant greens and yellow from sulfur deposits. As they got closer to the lake gases escaping from deep within the volcano bubbled up in the watery mud puddles, adding a burling sound to the backdrop of the island.

When they reached the normally blue green crater lake at roughly two o'clock, they found it to be white caused potentially by overnight activity that caused ash to fall back into the lake. None of the guides seemed the least big concern by this, which put most of the tour group at ease. They stopped to take pictures with the lake and steam setting.

A stunning and memorable backdrop for the photos. They could not stay long at the crater due to the chemicals in the air, so they moved on after only a. Few minutes. As Hayden led his second group to the lake, they would pass Brian and his group of four passengers as they were finishing up and heading back to the helicopter.

Halfway back, the first group stopped at two small fingers, deep streams that came down from different parts of the island. As they were feeling the warmth of the stream, someone gave a shout and the group turned to see a small black cloud. Soundlessly rising from the lake. It was described as harmless looking.

Lake. Spoke from a chimney, but it was not. The volcano was erupting.

They stopped to take pictures of it as a second bigger cloud erupted with a bang and a shower of rock. The cloud grew bigger. And more intense as the guides yelled for their group to run, they ran for their lives as rocks came pouring out of the sky like rain. Kelsey's group managed to take cover behind a large rock outcropping as the ash cloud overtook them.

The cloud blacked out the sun for two minutes. Two minutes of pitch black terror. With nothing but the sound of Mother Nature's fury and the hail of rocks pounding the tour groups. This was followed by the screams of the group as super heated, steam began to burn them. Steam in excess of 400 degrees Fahrenheit, seeped into their clothes and burn the skin beneath Brian and his passengers were closer to the beach than the helicopter when the eruption began.

They made a mad dash to get to the relative safety of the water and jumped in before the ash cloud could reach the group. They held their breaths as long as they could under the water, waiting desperately for sunlight to reappear. As the air cleared, they surfaced to watch fine ash fall like snow onto the island.

The tour group aboard the Phoenix sailing just off the coast of the island watched helplessly. As the volcano erupted, the ash Cloud sailed high into the air before spilling down completely engulfing the island. The boat skipper spun the boat around and kicked up the throttle to return back to the jetty in hopes of helping survivors off the island.

As the eruption ended, some survivors nearest the crater lake got to their feet in shock. Others unable to stand squirmed on the ground, screaming in pain and agony. A few lay unmoving and unresponsive. They were just over 300 feet away from the site of the eruption. No one on the island would escape unharmed.

Everyone was badly burnt. By the super heated steam, Kelsey got to her feet and gathered her group to get them moving, running towards the jetty. They stumbled and struggled to get to their feet and make it couples clung to each other in support both physically and emotionally. Brian with his passengers waited in the water near the jetty as the first group stumbled upon it.

Within minutes of the eruption, the Coast Guard was getting frantic calls for help. People of whakatane alerted by the sirens stepped outside and gathered to watch. As the cloud rose higher and higher above the car, a. After some initial confusion on whether or not there were people on the island, the Coast Guard launched the boat out.

Air ambulance helicopters from Auckland were also dispatched. Given the distances, neither would arrive quickly. It would take nearly an hour to an hour and a half for either to reach the island. When the Phoenix got back to the bay, the scene was nearly incomprehensible. The ash had turned everything gray.

The volcanic air helicopter was shoved halfway off the landing pad. Two of its rotors sagging towards the ground. Seeing the phoenix come into the bay, Brian was left with a choice, swim to the phoenix and save himself or swim to the jetty to help. He chose to help. Swimming towards the jetty as the Phoenix sent its zodiac boats over to the jetty to retrieve the group.

There was chaos on the jetty as the panicked survivors pushed and rushed to get onto the boats. It was a scene from a horror movie. As they tried to help people onto the boats, skin was sliding off their arms from the burns. They had to go slow as they transferred them from boat to boat. Everyone from the first group, plus Brian's made it onto the Phoenix.

Once aboard, they gathered every first aid kit they could find. Volunteers from their group offered to assist in first aid efforts. They needed all the help they could. As they set up triage for the injured, the first aid kits turned out to be mostly useless in the face of the seriousness of the burns.

The best they could do was pour cold water on survivors to help take away the pain. The group had burns ranging from 45% to nearly full body burns, the degree of burns and the time it would take to get back to shore. Meant some would not survive the trip. Several crew members, including the skipper, stayed behind to search for other survivors.

As the Phoenix now at full capacity raced back to the mainland, they would find one more survivor, 19-year-old Jesse Langford from the second group who they would take aboard the awa.

Back on the mainland Search and Rescue pilot, John Funnel. After speaking with other chopper pilots took off in a plane to circle the island, the steep sides of the crater. Made communications with the outside world, damned near impossible. He would fly around the island and relay messages back and forth from rescue workers to the police and coast guard.

Three more chopper pilots from tour groups would follow shortly behind him to assist in getting people off the island back aboard the Phoenix. An hour had now gone by since the eruption. The injuries were getting worse. The burns were swelling and blistered tongues were popped up. As the survivor's throats started to close, many were going into shock and unable to stand the wind and the sunlight.

Others shook uncontrollably. Two choppers passed by overhead coming close as the Coast Guard boat was en route to the Phoenix. The choppers took a slow pass over the island, spotting the second group on the ground before landing, putting on gas masks. They raced through shin deep piles of ash, rushing the few hundred yards to the group near the crater lake.

They went person to person checking injuries and offering reassurances. The injuries were horrific, along with the burns from the steam. They had suffered severe injuries from flying rocks and acid burns from the chemicals in the air.

Most of the group was still alive, but a few were unresponsive. They were able to locate every member of the group and amongst this horrific scene, they found acts of courage and heroism. They found open medical kits from where the tour guides tried to help the wounded, along with many other gas masks, looked like they had been placed after the person had fallen unconscious.

Tiffany. One of the guides who did not make it was found with an asthma inhaler in his outstretched hand like he was trying to hand it off. Hayden, the other guide who would never leave the island had tried to lead the group away from the crater following a stream downhill in the darkness of the ash cloud before dying from his wounds, the pilots still trying to comprehend what they saw.

Believed they had arrived just in time. The injured survivors were hanging in. They just had to wait for the rescue workers to arrive. Then the call came, no help was coming. The island was deemed too dangerous for rescue operations, so the pilots took it upon themselves. One by one, they retreat their helicopters and began loading up survivors.

Each helicopter could take up to five people back to the mainland. Within 40 minutes, they had 12 loaded up and were in flight. The last eight of the group were beyond all help. The final pilot to leave arranged the casualties to make retrieval of the bodies easier when the rescue crew finally arrived.

It would take four days for a military unit in full hazmat suits to arrive to get them. When the pilots made it back to Whakatane, they were told they did a fantastic job, but for their own safety, they needed to stand down. The Prime Minister Jacinda Arder acknowledged their heroism and dedication in a press conference.

But they were still a bit pissed about being told to stand down and told the pressed they were being too cautious. The time to go back for the bodies was now let the families mourn and bury their dead, and they were absolutely right. Overnight, a nasty storm hit the island, Hayden and another passenger, Winona Langfords bodies would be swept out to sea during the storm.

I. Neither body would ever be recovered. Eight people died on the island, and 14 more would pass away from their injuries. In the weeks that followed, the survivors would suffer a long road recovering from their injuries. They required so many skin grafts that New Zealand had to put out a call for help.

They needed over 33 square meters of skin for all the grafts. That's enough skin to cover 16 bodies. The most serious among them was Jesse, who had burned over 90% of his body and would go on to make a full recovery. In the aftermath of the disaster, several criminal charges would be filed against multiple tour groups by WorkSafe New Zealand.

Six of them. Would be convicted. The three owners of the island would be convicted of failing to keep the visitor safe in order to pay over $1.5 million in restitution. A court ruling earlier this year, overturned all those convictions. In December of 2022, a group of 20 people made up of victims, family members, survivors, and first responders.

Return to the island to place a memorial plaque for the victims. To this day, tours to the island have been suspended with no plans for them to resume. The closest you can get is a one hour scenic flight over the island.

And that was the FCA eruption. Thanks for listening, and if you liked the show, please consider leaving a rating or review on your Apple Choice or reach out to the show at history's a disaster@gmail.com. With comments or suggestions, you can always follow the show on social media using the links in the show notes.

And don't forget to share the show because sharing is caring and if there was more caring in the world, maybe history wouldn't be a disaster. Thanks, Ann. Goodbye.