Whiddy Island disaster: After 45 years families might finally get answers and justice

On January 8, 1979, French-owned oil tanker, Betelgeuse, caught fire and exploded at the Gulf Oil-operated terminal jetty at Whiddy Island in Bantry Bay, Co Cork

The explosion and resulting fireball from the Betelgeuse oil tanker killed 50 people, both on the ship and on the nearby Gulf Oil jetty. Picture: Richard Mills/Irish Examiner

The son of a victim of the Whiddy Island disaster says he is prepared “to go to the well of his being time and time again” to get justice for the victims’ families.

International maritime law expert, Michael Kingston, was speaking ahead of today's 45th anniversary of the devastating maritime tragedy that claimed the lives of 50 people, including his father, Tim, leaving their families shattered, and casting a long shadow of loss and pain over the region for decades.

Mr Kingston was busy at the weekend preparing for his first face-to-face meeting with representatives of the Attorney General’s office, which has begun considering his request for the Attorney General to direct the holding of new inquests into the deaths of all 50 victims.

“It may have taken 45 years, but this is an important step in seeking justice,” Mr Kingston said.

“You have to go to the well of your being time and time again but I am prepared to do that, if that’s what it takes. It’s called getting justice.” 

The French-owned oil tanker, Betelgeuse, caught fire and exploded at the Gulf Oil-operated terminal jetty at Whiddy Island in Bantry Bay, Co Cork, on January 8, 1979.

The explosion and resulting fireball killed 50 people, both on the ship and on the jetty.

A lot of the recoverable bodies were retrieved within days.  But the body of Michael’s father, Tim Kingston, 31, and the remains of two other men, Cornelious O’Shea and Denis O’Leary, were lost at sea for months. 

Of the 42 French crew who died in the explosion, 23 were never recovered.

The inquests into the deaths of all 50 victims were held within six months of the disaster, on July 12, 1979, before the publication of the State’s tribunal of inquiry into the disaster, which was not finalised until May 1980.

Mr Kingston says, in the first instance, the inquests should have been adjourned pending the publication of the tribunal report and describes the holding of the inquests so soon after the disaster as nothing more than a rubber-stamping exercise.

There was such a rush to get them over and done with (on one day), that the file, for the lives of 50 people, is no thicker than half a pound of Irish butter.

When the inquests were heard, he said they relied heavily on the statements of two individuals whose evidence to the tribunal was later found by the tribunal itself to have been fabricated.

The tribunal concluded that in one case, an individual suppressed certain facts and fabricated an account of when and how the disaster occurred, and to support this version, incorrect entries were made in certain logs, and that false accounts of the events of the evening were given by certain Gulf employees to their employers, to investigating gardaí, and to the tribunal, with an entire chapter dedicated to the ‘Suppression of the Truth’ by certain Gulf Oil employees, including management.

And to compound the families’ grief, Mr Kingston said when his father’s body, and the remains of Mr O’Shea and Mr O’Leary were finally recovered from Bantry Bay in August 1979, a second inquest into their deaths was held in February 1980, that again relied on the same statements which were later discredited by the tribunal.

The inquests led to the death certificate for his father, Tim Kingston, recording a certified cause of death as “asphyxia due to accidental drowning”.

Mr Kingston’s submission of a request to order new inquests under Section 24 of the Coroners Act 1962 follows years of painstaking research and campaigning on the issue, which has included a detailed trawl through each of the inquest files.

He says the “unreliability” of the inquests carried out on July 12, 1979, and of the three inquests held again on February 15, 1980, should lead to the holding of new inquests.

Mr Kingston, who recently represented the Lucas family at the inquest into the death of Irish Coastguard volunteer Catriona Lucas at the coroner’s court in Limerick, which highlighted key maritime safety failures by the Department of Transport, said he and other relatives are angry that the inquest verdicts in the Whiddy deaths do not refer to any context or circumstances surrounding the disaster, or to the regulatory failures which contributed to the disaster, “which is contrary to established fundamental legal principles — under Article 2 of the European Convention of Human Rights”.

Michael Kingston speaking at the Betelgeuse disaster 40th anniversary mass at St Finbarr’s Church, Bantry, in 2019. Picture: Dan Linehan

He believes the deaths should be recorded as “unlawful killing” due to “staggering safety reductions by Gulf Oil as a result of monumental regulatory failures” by the Irish State in the lead-up to the disaster which has led to “immense emotional consequences” for his family and all of the other victims’ families.

The tribunal of inquiry laid most of the blame for the initiation of the disaster at the feet of the ship’s owners, Total, but jetty operators Gulf Oil were severely criticised also for several human and procedural failings which prevented a successful rescue of all victims from the offshore jetty.

But it also highlighted a raft of regulatory failures for which the State was responsible.

It said while a harbour authority was in existence at the time of the disaster, it had no effective legal powers and was not in any way responsible for the management of the harbour or safety precautions at the terminal.

Establishing a harbour authority without jurisdiction over Whiddy Island meant that Gulf itself was responsible for drafting bye-laws under the Petroleum Act, 1881, for the safe handling of petroleum products, the Tribunal found.

“This was a highly anomalous situation and contributed to the fact that no bye-laws were ever made under the Act of 1881,” it said.

It also found that while the Dangerous Substances Act was enacted in June 1972, which gave wide powers to the then Minister for Labour to make safety regulations against the risk of injury caused by petroleum, the Act had not been brought into operation when the disaster occurred.

These regulations were very comprehensive and included matters relating to safety and fire-fighting systems at offshore jetties such as that at Whiddy Island.

No explanation was given to the tribunal for the extraordinary delay that occurred in the preparation of these regulations, the final report said.

The failure to establish by-laws under the provisions of the Petroleum Act, of 1881, or to introduce regulations under the Dangerous Substances Act, of 1972, had serious consequences, the Tribunal found.

The statutory obligations placed on Gulf in relation to the maintenance of proper safety measures and standards and the provision of effective fire-fighting systems, particularly on the position of the duty tug on the night of the disaster, were “wholly inadequate”, it found.

There was a correspondingly inadequate requirement on the public authorities, both at governmental and local level, to supervise and inspect the safety measures and fire-fighting systems at the terminal, it said.

“However, such supervisory functions as were imposed by law on the public authorities were properly carried out by the officials responsible for fulfilling them,” it found.

Michael Kingston with Emma and Bernard Lucas  at Kilmallock Courthouse, for the inquest into the death of Coastguard volunteer Caitriona Lucas. Picture: Brendan Gleeson

The tribunal also found that modifications made to the jetty’s original fire-fighting system had the effect of down-grading it, that inadequate consideration was given to the means of escape from the offshore jetty; that the pressurisation system in the personnel building on the jetty was undesirable; that breaches of the hazardous area classification of the jetty had occurred; and that standards of maintenance of important equipment had been lowered.

It found the alteration of the mooring position of the jetty tug “seriously weakened the emergency service to the jetty” and it found that Gulf’s Policy and Procedures manual was seriously inaccurate in relation to the role of the tugs in an emergency and the classification of the hazardous area at the jetty.

“Had the Dangerous Substances (Oil Jetties) Regulations, 1979, been in force prior to the disaster, it is very likely that at least some of these deficiencies would not have occurred or, if they had, that they would have been observed by a departmental inspection and remedied,” the final report said.

It also found “a highly anomalous legal situation” existed, in that the jurisdiction of Cork County Council, both as a planning authority and as a fire brigade authority, did not extend to the offshore jetty at the terminal - its jurisdiction ended at the low water mark at the island.

“The State has completely failed those who died at Whiddy Island, their families, those involved in the rescue, and the community of Bantry, but now at last, after 45 years, it appears that finally might be about to change, the plea for obvious justice in line with established fundamental legal principles having finally being heard,” Mr Kingston said.