Page 66 - Australian Defence Magazine May 2022

66 SEAPOWER HADR
MAY 2022 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
cording to a 15 February Defence press release.
HMAS Supply also assisted with clean-up efforts on Nomuka Island, and resupplied Adelaide a second time during her time on station with fresh food and fuel.
“SINCE THEIR COMMISSIONING AND ACCEPTANCE INTO OPERATIONAL SERVICE IN 2015, AUSTRALIA’S LHDS HAVE ALWAYS DEPLOYED AND ACHIEVED THE MISSIONS DIRECTED BY GOVERNMENT TO PROVIDE HUMANITARIAN AID AND DISASTER RELIEF”
were, in fact, two separate power fail- ures experienced on successive days.
Chief of Navy Vice Admiral Mike Noonan told the Estimates hearing that Adelaide had experienced a total electri- cal outage while at anchor on 29 January when the online diesel generator failed. He noted that emergency power was restored “within a matter of hours” and full services were restored to the ship.
On 30 January, however, Adelaide suffered a second power failure, VADM Noonan revealed.
On 2 March, Adelaide handed
over the command of the ADF
Joint Task Group for Operation
Tonga Assist to sister ship HMAS
Canberra, which would continue
to coordinate Defence activities in
Tonga, spelling the conclusion of what will have been a seven-week deployment for Adelaide. The ship returned to Fleet Base East in Sydney on 11 March.
“This time it was as a result of a fault on a gas turbine, not on the same diesel generator
that had failed the previous day,” he said.
Emergency power was restored within two minutes, full
power was restored during the course of the day, and the ship was back to full operational capability the following day. “The exact nature of the reason for these power failures is part of an ongoing technical investigation, but I can con- firm that it was not a single point of failure, as we might
have opined.”
VADM Noonan said it was likely that volcanic debris
contributed to the overheating of the ship’s systems.
“It is a complex operating environment with the ash-lad- en air and water that the ship was operating in, which led to increased temperatures in some of the systems in the
ship, which may have contributed to the power failure.”
On January 31, five days following HMAS Adelaide’s arrival in Tonga, it was revealed by the ABC that the ship had been stranded due to a total power failure, including backup power, and was still docked and experiencing problems de- spite an earlier statement by Tonga’s Health Minister, Saia Piukala, that Adelaide would leave immediately after un- loading supplies.
Australian officials kept tight-lipped on details around the equipment issues until a Senate Estimates hearing nearly three weeks later, on 17 February, which revealed that there
LEFT: HMAS Adelaide is followed by HMAS Canberra and HMAS Supply into Nuku‘alofa harbour, Tonga, as part of Operation Tonga Assist 2022
RIGHT: Replenishment at sea onboard HMAS Supply as it refuels the Japan Maritime Self- Defense Force ship JS Osumi during Operation Tonga Assist 2022
On 15 February, auxiliary oiler replenishment ship HMAS Supply arrived in Tongan waters to offload further disaster relief stores and provide replenishment to Adelaide and other vessels delivering assistance, including Japanese Maritime Self Defence Force vessel JS Osumi, to allow these ships to extend their time at sea.
In addition to over 600,000 litres of fuel, the replenish- ment at sea (RAS) with Adelaide on the day of Supply’s arrival included 16 vertical replenishment loads of humani- tarian and disaster relief stores via MRH 90 helicopter and a further 30 pallets of fresh food and supplies winched onto Adelaide's landing craft, ac-
LHD TROUBLE
In a press release on the day of the command handover, Defence said that Canberra’s first task would be to help establish a distribution centre for supplies in the Ha’api island group at the request of the Government of Tonga and would continue to assist with recovery efforts for an- other few weeks.
In addition to the RAN’s efforts, the Royal Australian Air Force’s (RAAF) support in Tonga included delivery of 132 tonnes of HADR supplies across 16 flights (C-17A Globe- master and C-130J Hercules), including essential items such as bottled water, purification tablets, tents, hygiene kits, kitchen kits, tarps and food.
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