Executive summary
The King of Tonga established a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the capsize and sinking of the interisland ferry MV Princess Ashika on 5 August 2009, which resulted in 74 deaths and 54 survivors. The New Zealand Transport Accident Investigation Commission was asked to conduct a technical investigation and to provide a report to the Royal Commission to consider as one component of its own inquiry. Readers should refer to the Introduction section of this report for further contextual information relating to the technical investigation, and to the Royal Commission’s own report which addressed wider terms of reference and considered later evidence to that considered for this report.
The main report is available at right, while the appendices have been split into three volumes and are available for download as pdfs in the sidebar to the right.
Caution: These files are very large.
Erratum to printed copies of Report 09-209:
Please be advised that there was a digital printing error in some printed copies of this report. On Page 1, Figure 1: Chart of the general area, map content is missing. The online pdf is correct, and a single page pdf of the map is available using the link in the sidebar to the right.