WHEN a married couple vanished on a scuba diving trip on the Great Barrier Reef, no one noticed for 48 hours.
After 27 years, the mysterious disappearance of American tourists Tom and Eileen Lonergan remains unsolved, but various clues provide some insight into the events that may have transpired.
A crucial witness’s daughter recently shared with The Sun details of her mother’s conversation with the Lonergans just days prior to their ill-fated journey, highlighting the significant impact their vanishing had on the local community.
Married for a decade, the couple went missing during a group scuba diving expedition at St Crispin’s Reef, located within Australia’s renowned Great Barrier Reef, on January 25, 1998.
Tom, 33, and Eileen, 28, were experienced divers – and bonded over their love for adventure and the outdoors when they met at Louisiana State University.
After a two-year tour of duty with the US Peace Corps in Tuvalu and Fiji, the pair decided to visit the Great Barrier Reef.
But it was this passion and love of the ocean that sealed their fate when their charter boat, Outer Edge, unknowingly returned to Port Douglas without them.
The couple had boarded the boat excitedly in the morning as part of a group of 26 divers.
But only 24 would return.
Outer Edge Dive had planned a routine diving trip to explore a reef located 40 miles off the Queensland coast – with various dives scheduled throughout the day.
During the final dive around 3pm, the couple told a diving instructor that they would “go off and do their own thing” before they swam out of view and they never seen again.
The couple were last seen exploring the reefs 12 metres below the surface of the water.
It was not until two days later on January 27 that Tom and Eileen were reported missing sparking a major search and rescue mission.
Their disappearance was only noticed when their belongings, including shoes, passports, and Tom’s wallet, were found in a bag on the boat.
Skipper Geoffrey Nairn told cops at the time: “I looked in the bag and thought, Jesus Christ, it’s got a wallet and papers in it.”
The vessel was also missing two diving tanks and two weight belts – the latter being found on January 26 at St Crispin’s Reef by a diver on another Outer Edge trip the day after the Lonergans went missing.
After finding the couple’s belongings, Nairn called the hotel where the pair were staying.
The manager informed him that they had not been seen for a few days and a missing persons report was filed.
The Australian Navy and police launched into action to find the pair – scrambling 17 aircraft, helicopters and boats, while locals jumped into their own vessels to help.
But all that could be found from the couple were pieces of diving equipment that had washed ashore, some personal belongings, and a haunting message.
A dive slate used for writing underwater was washed up on a beach reading: “To anyone who can help us: We have been abandoned on Agincourt Reef by MV Outer Edge 25 Jan 98 03pm.
“Please help us come to rescue to before we die. Help!!!”
The message, believed to have been written by Eileen, sparked a major investigation into Outer Edge Dive and led to an overhaul in diving safety protocols in the region.
A diving tank, the torn hood of a wetsuit, and two undamaged buoyancy vests marked with Tom and Eileen’s names were found on a beach six miles from Cooktown.
Eileen’s green and grey wetsuit was also found with tears in the buttocks.
Later, an eerie diary entry written by Eileen was found.
Two weeks before the trip, she said her husband had a “death wish” – sparking wild theories about what happened.
She wrote that he wanted a “quick and peaceful death” adding: “Tom’s not suicidal, but he’s got a death wish that could lead him to what he desires and I could get caught in that.”
However, both Tom and Eileen’s parents disputed these comments at the inquest, saying they were taken out of context.
Despite rescuers recovering a few of their belongings in the search spanning 8,000 nautical miles, Tom and Eileen’s bodies have never been found.
It is generally accepted that the pair suffered from exhaustion, exposure, dehydration, and eventually drowned.
Others have suggested that they may have been attacked by sharks with the Great Barrier Reef being home to several species of shark including tiger sharks.
Renowned Australian diver Ben Cropp with over 10,000 logged dives and 48 years experience of exploring the oceans spoke about this at the inquest.
He said: “My personal feeling is that they were taken by a tiger [shark] in the first 24 to 48 hours.”
It is this scenario that plays out in the 2004 survival horror film Open Water based on the Lonergans disappearance.
Another wildly speculative theory was that the couple may have faked their deaths or used the diving trip to stage a disappearance.
The discovery of the diving slate has largely discredited this idea but some are still baffled as to how some of the Lonergans equipment was found in relatively good condition and at the same place on the same beach.
Eileen’s diary entry added to these suspicions.
Timeline of disappearance
January 25 1998: Tom and Eileen join 24 others for a scuba diving trip to St Crispin’s Reef.
At 3pm they embark on the final dive of the day saying they would go off and ‘do their own thing’ together.
They were last seen exploring the reefs 12 meters below the surface.
January 26, 1998: Another Outer Edge tour group visits the area and a diver finds dive weights on the bottom of the reef.
January 27 1998: Skipper Geoffrey Nairn discovers couple’s belongings on boat and a search and rescue mission is launched.
February 1998: Eileen’s wet suit washes ashore as well as the pairs scuba vests found on a beach near Cooktown, around 100 miles north of Port Douglas.
June 1998: More diving gear from the couple is found on a Port Douglas beach around 75 miles from where they went missing.
The dive slate was also found around this time.
September 1998: Inquest of the couple’s disappearance opens in Carins, Queensland.
On September 11, Eileen’s diary is found in which she wrote two weeks before the trip that her husband had a “death wish.”
October 10 1998: Coroner rules that Tom and Eileen died at sea from either drowning, exposure or shark attack.
He charged Nairn with their unlawful killing.
24 November 1999: Narin is cleared of the charges against him after being found not guilty of criminal negligence.
An inquest into the incident further sparked conspiracy theories with the testimonies of Cairns Visitors Information Center worker Gail McLean and Outer Edge’s operations manager Tom Colrain.
Colrain stated that the night before the trip, Tom phoned him to repeatedly ask if the boat would visit Agincourt Reef to the point where he became extremely flustered.
Gail made a similar testimony about speaking to Tom in the days leading up to the trip where he asked her about a charter vessel called “Quicksilver V” and if it would visit the reef.
When she confirmed that it would, Tom allegedly continued to press her on the matter to make sure.
She said: “I got my back up and said I didn’t care what anyone else had told him; it was Agincourt Reef that ‘Quicksilver’ visited.”
Gail’s daughter Melody Forgan spoke to The Sun about her memories of the time and her late-mother’s testimony.
She said: “All I remember is that Tom and Eileen came into the shop at the Coach Station next to the Pier Complex and wanted to talk about diving.
“From memory, my mum did not like him much, as she thought that Tom arrogant, specifically asked questions but didn’t listen to the answers and was determined to dive from Port Douglas because seemed to infer that he ‘knew all there was to know about diving’.
“My mum was known for being an astute character, the type of person who called a spade a spade.”
‘Loss of trust’
On Friday 10 October 1998, the coroner ruled that Tom and Eileen died at sea from either drowning, exposure or shark attack some time between 8 am on 26 January 1998 and 2 February 1998.
The investigation into the couple’s disappearance concluded that there were a series of operational failures most importantly being that a final head count after the last dive was not taken.
This hugely delayed the search mission for the couple, and Nairn was charged with manslaughter, though he was later acquitted in 1999.
The courts ruled the couple’s disappearance was the result of negligence not criminal actions and an overhaul of safety procedures in the diving industry took place.
This included mandatory and regular headcounts and well as enhanced tracking systems were some of the many policies put in place.
In September 2008, Richard Triggs who was onboard the vessel for the trip to St Crispin’s Reef told Michael McFayden Scuba that he had major concerns about the company’s safety procedures.
Their disappearance caused a lot of damage to the dive industry.
Melody Forgan
He said: “I was extremely critical of the safety procedures of Outer Edge, [and] have felt my wife and my own safety were put in jeopardy that day.”
One inspector in the case revealed at the inquest that the Lonergans would have had to swim six kilometres across a strong current to get to the nearest place of safety – a moored pontoon at Agincourt reef.
“Their disappearance caused a lot of damage to the dive industry, probably worse in Port Douglas, than in Cairns,” Forgan recalled.
“It’s one thing for divers to experience problems in the water, even to the point of drowning and dying, as long as you know where they are and can account for them (dead or alive).
“But totally different to not notice that two passengers have not exited the water from their last dive and then failing to notice that ALL of their personal gear was left on the boat at the end of the day”
“This event caused a loss of trust with regard to a lot of potential snorkelers and divers looking to do reef tours out of Cairns and Port Douglas,” she added.
“I can’t say anything bad about Tom, Eileen, or the poor vessel owner for that matter (as pretty sure his business was let down by crew onboard, on the day of the tragedy.)”
After Nairn was acquitted of the charges against him, Outer Edge was fined after pleading guilty to negligence which saw them go out of business.
