WA: Navy may have tried to deceive inquiry, inquest told
By Liza Kappelle
PERTH, April 28 AAP - The navy may have sought to deceive a board of inquiry into thedeaths of four young sailors in a fireball aboard HMAS Westralia almost five years ago,an inquest was told today.
West Australian coroner Alastair Hope is examining why the sailors died when a fireengulfed the engine room of the ship on May 5, 1998, in what remains Australia's worstpeacetime naval disaster since the 1964 Voyager incident.
Killed were Petty Officer Shaun Smith, 29, from Perth, Leading Seaman Bradley Meek,25, of Sydney, Midshipman Megan Pelly, 22, of Dalby in Queensland, and Able Seaman PhillipCarroll, 23, from Melbourne.
The inquest began in December last year but Mr Hope adjourned it after just three hours.
He did so to take advantage of another inquiry - which did not end until last month- into breaches of the navy's minor maintenance procedures.
In an opening address today, counsel assisting the coroner, Dominic Mulligan, saidsome evidence supplied by the navy board of inquiry (BOI) into the 1998 incident "maybe unreliable and unsatisfactory".
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KEYWORD: WESTRALIA LEAD
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