Fourth Fatality Connected to Optus 911 Service Disruption

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Key Points

An Optus triple-zero outage spanned 10 hours, contrary to initial claims of two hours, and is associated with four fatalities.
The SA premier criticized Optus for its slow response and inadequate communication with officials during the emergency.
Federal Communications Minister Anika Wells has pledged a “full and thorough investigation” into the matter.

A fourth individual passed away after being unable to connect with the triple-zero emergency line during a 10-hour Optus disruption, it has been disclosed.

The telecommunications company confirmed a second fatality in Western Australia, noting that the police indicated the individual likely attempted to call triple-zero for assistance.

“I am profoundly saddened by this additional revelation and offer my heartfelt sympathies to the individual’s family and friends,” stated Optus CEO Stephen Rue in a declaration of the death on Saturday afternoon.

Western Australian Premier Roger Cook asserted, “Optus must be accountable for this tremendously tragic incident and they must supply explanations.”

During the outage in Adelaide, an eight-week-old infant and a 68-year-old woman died, as well as a 74-year-old man in Perth. Approximately 600 triple-zero calls were attempted during this period of disruption.

Current information suggests the outage extended from shortly after midnight on Thursday to midday of the same day.

It remains unclear whether the unsuccessful triple-zero calls directly influenced the emergencies that resulted in fatalities.

‘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 timing attributed to “the complexity of extracting records from the network,” he noted.

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 must ensure they’re informing our emergency services with… all pertinent information as soon as they have it, before considering a public statement,” he remarked.

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

South Australian Peter Malinauskas stated that Optus would be “held accountable” and needs to justify why it initially claimed the 10-hour interruption lasted only 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.”

An exhaustive, independent investigation is necessary and “the state government stands ready to do that, but we will also consider what actions the commonwealth government plans for the investigation,” he mentioned.

‘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’ features enable mobile devices to connect to an alternative network to make triple-zero calls if their own network 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.