Fourth Fatality Tied to Optus Emergency Call System Failure

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Key Points

An Optus triple-zero outage lasted 10 hours, not two as first claimed, and is linked to four deaths.
The SA premier blasted Optus for delays and poor communication with authorities during the crisis.
Federal Communications Minister Anika Wells has promised a “full and thorough investigation” into the incident.

A fourth person died after being unable to contact the triple-zero emergency line during a 10-hour Optus outage, it has been revealed.

The telco has confirmed a second death in Western Australia and says police informed them the person had likely attempted to call triple-zero for help.

“I am deeply saddened by this further news and extend my heartfelt condolences to the person’s family and friends,” Optus CEO Stephen Rue said in a statement announcing the death on Saturday afternoon.

Western Australian Premier Roger Cook said “Optus must be held accountable for this incredibly tragic event and they must provide answers”.

An eight-week-old baby and 68-year-old woman also died in Adelaide during the outage, as did a 74-year-old man in Perth. Some 600 triple-zero calls were attempted during the interruption.

The latest advice indicates the outage lasted from shortly after midnight on Thursday until lunchtime on Thursday.

It was not yet known if the failed triple-zero calls had a direct impact on the emergencies in which people had died.

‘We take full accountability’

A customer alerted Optus to the outage after the telco failed to detect a system failure that blocked the triple-zero calls.

Rue said the outage was caused by a botched firewall upgrade and emergency call access was restored about 1.50 pm on Thursday. Optus was also notified shortly after by South Australian Police.

“There was a technical failure in the system and further there were no alarms to alert us that some emergency calls were not making it through to emergency services,” Rue told reporters in Sydney on Saturday.

Welfare checks were conducted into Thursday evening and Friday, with delays in the timing “due to the complexity of pulling records from the network”, he said.

Optus CEO Stephen Rue has confirmed an independent investigation would be launched into the outage. Source: AAP / Lukas Coch

The deaths were not confirmed until Friday, he said, while repeatedly defending the decision not to alert the public until a snap press conference that evening as Optus ascertained the facts.

“We take full accountability for the technical failure and that we were unaware of this for … an unacceptable gap in time,” he said.

Early reviews suggested two complaints referred by the telecommunications industry ombudsman from two people who contacted Optus on Thursday morning weren’t handled “as would be expected”, Rue said.

“This information was not surfaced with the relevant escalation at that time.”

‘Beggars belief’

Meanwhile, South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas has accused Optus of failing in its duty to inform authorities about the deaths linked to the outage.

“Optus informed South Australian police the names of the suburbs where those two deaths had occurred, but did not tell South Australian police the names, addresses and the phone numbers regarding those two deaths,” Malinauskas said.

“The fact that that didn’t occur until after a press conference yesterday beggars belief.”

“They’ve got to make sure they’re letting our emergency services know … all the information the moment they have it, before they think about crafting a media statement,” he said.

A close-up of a middle-aged man wearing a navy suit standing behind a microphone.

South Australian Peter Malinauskas said Optus would be “held to account” and would need to explain why it initially said the 10-hour outage had only lasted for two hours. Source: AAP / Hilary Wardaugh

“It is somewhat extraordinary we had a situation (on Friday) after everything that had unfolded, that we were still struggling to get information from Optus to allow police to do their work.”

SA Police Commissioner Grant Stevens told the premier on Friday night that Optus had only supplied the suburbs where the deaths had occurred.

“I then called the CEO of Optus and thankfully, it was rectified following that,” he said.

“But the lack of information flow from Optus to the South Australian government’s appropriate authorities is somewhat bewildering and it raises a lot of questions.”

A thorough, independent examination was needed and “the state government stands ready to do that, but we’ll also wait and see what actions the commonwealth government wants to take about that investigation”, he said.

‘Completely unacceptable’: Wells

Federal Communications Minister Anika Wells said the incident was “incredibly serious and completely unacceptable”.

“The impact of this failure has had tragic consequences and my personal thoughts are with those who have lost a loved one,” she said in a statement.

All telecommunications providers were obligated to ensure they carried emergency service calls and the outage would be thoroughly investigated, Wells said.

Wells also said she had contacted the Australian Communications and Media Authority to ensure it would conduct a “full and thorough investigation” into the incident.

The federal opposition’s communications spokesperson, Melissa McIntosh, expressed deep concern that the triple-zero ‘camp-on arrangements’ that divert calls to other carriers had also failed.

‘Camp-on’ mechanisms allow mobile phones to connect to another network to make triple-zero calls if the network through which the call was made fails.

People weren’t able to call triple-zero on landlines, although it was still possible to do so on a mobile.

The telco was fined more than $12 million for breaching emergency call rules during the nationwide outage.

Optus failed to provide emergency call access to 2,145 people and subsequently did not conduct welfare checks on 369 people who tried to call triple-zero, the communications watchdog found.

Rue took over as the company’s chief executive in 2024 from Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, who resigned over the 2023 outage.