Guns and Divers | Episode 3

Summary

Pipeline Podcast Episode 3: "Guns and Divers"

Host: Isabelle Stanley
Release Date: May 29, 2025
Producer: Bella Soames
Additional Reporting: Andrew Jehring

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Introduction: The Desperate Quest for Rescue

Episode 3 of Pipeline, titled "Guns and Divers," delves deeper into the harrowing events following the February 2022 accident where professional divers were sucked into an underwater oil pipe off Trinidad and Tobago. The episode focuses on the intense efforts to rescue the trapped divers, the resistance faced from the managing company Paria, and the emotional toll on the families involved.

Michael Kirban's Determined Plea

The episode opens at a press conference with Michael Kirban, whose father, Faisal, is among the four divers trapped in the pipe. Michael’s frustration is palpable as he implores management to allow rescue operations:

Michael Kirban [00:28]: "All I don't want the men who really want to rescue these guys outside on the site. They don't want us there. They cannot run this operation. They cannot run this operation."

Visibly exhausted and on the verge of tears, Michael reveals his extensive efforts over the past two days to save his father, including devising multiple rescue plans and personally diving into the pipe:

Michael Kirban [00:59]: "Our divers was ready to go in the line. We were ready to go and send."

Despite his relentless attempts, Michael's efforts are continually obstructed by the company's directives, leaving him grappling with despair as hope fades.

Journey to Berth Six: Encountering Paria's Resistance

Isabelle Stanley and her team set sail from the San Fernando Yacht Club towards the disaster site at Berth Six. Accompanied by Kaz Amali Sr., the owner of LMCS and father of Kaz Jr., they arrive at the ominous scene:

Kaz Amali Sr. [03:21]: "That's fine. So it's not far. Probably about. We might take about five to 10 minutes to reach out there."

Upon arrival, the divers, including Ronald Ramatar and Corey, prepare to enter the water despite Paria officials' orders against diving:

Ronald Ramatar [07:27]: "But I didn't say nobody. As I reached, I went into the water."

Ronald's determination leads him to successfully rescue Christopher Boodram from the pipe using a rope as a ladder:

Ronald Ramatar [07:42]: "I heard that voice calling, you know, as I heard that voice calling, I climb up. When I climb up and I look down inside the pipe, I saw Christopher."

Conflict with the Coast Guard

As dusk turns to night, the situation intensifies. Paria calls in the Coast Guard to assist, but their response is inadequate:

Ronald Ramatar [12:20]: "They said they're not equipped for that. They're not trained for that. And they're not going down there. They're not even going inside the chamber."

Frustrated by the lack of support, Ronald and his team attempt to take matters into their own hands, only to be halted by armed Coast Guard officials who enforce a strict no-diving policy:

Ronald Ramatar [13:07]: "They didn't point it at us. But you know that are going alone. That is enough to fit the higher in fear."

Families on Land: A Community in Crisis

Parallel to the rescue efforts, the episode portrays the emotional devastation experienced by the families. Vanessa, Rishi’s wife, recounts her anguish upon learning of her husband's disappearance:

Vanessa [20:07]: "And my hand started to shake because I could not hold the phone."

Families converge at the yacht club’s car park, enduring the elements while seeking information and support. The lack of official communication exacerbates their distress, leading to chaos and frustration as they await updates.

Paria's Press Conference: A Moment of Betrayal

After 24 agonizing hours, Paria holds a press conference to inform the families that the operation has shifted from rescue to recovery:

Paria Chairman Newman George [30:31]: "Based on advice from all the experts, the operation has now moved from rescue to recovery."

The announcement is met with disbelief and anger, especially when Mushtaq Mohammed, Paria's general manager, behaves unprofessionally by laughing at the grieving families:

Mushtaq Mohammed [26:18]: Laughs at the families, showing blatant disrespect and insensitivity.

The Tragic Outcome: Bodies Recovered

Despite initial efforts, only three bodies are recovered, leaving uncertainty about the fate of the fourth diver. Vanessa recognizes that her husband, Rishi, is not among them:

Vanessa [34:07]: "It's not him. There's nothing in it. I see nothing in him."

The delayed and insufficient rescue operations result in profound loss and unanswered questions about the management and safety protocols that led to the tragedy.

Continued Pursuit for Accountability

In the aftermath, the host hints at ongoing investigations and efforts to hold Paria accountable. Isabelle Stanley and her team pursue leads on key Paria personnel, including retired Colin Piper, to uncover the root causes of the disaster and the company's role in obstructing rescue operations.

Ronald Ramatar [37:36]: "Put yourself in that position on that evening when you have to make a decision to send a man into a pipeline a quarter of a mile long."

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Conclusion and Next Steps

Episode 3 paints a vivid and emotional picture of the relentless struggle between the divers' families and the managing company, highlighting themes of desperation, frustration, and the quest for truth. As the episode concludes, listeners are left anticipating the next installment, which promises to delve into Paria's official account of the tragic events.

Next Episode Preview:
In the following episode of Pipeline, listeners will hear Paria’s perspective on the accident and the company's defense of their actions during the rescue efforts.

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Notable Quotes:

• Michael Kirban [00:28]: "They cannot run this operation."
• Ronald Ramatar [07:27]: "I went into the water."
• Vanessa [20:07]: "I was screaming, yelling, and this cannot be true."
• Mushtaq Mohammed [26:18]: Laughs at the families.
• Newman George [30:31]: "Operation has now moved from rescue to recovery."
• Ronald Ramatar [37:36]: "You have to make a decision to send a man into a pipeline a quarter of a mile long."

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Pipeline continues to unravel the complexities and controversies surrounding the 2022 diving accident, offering listeners an in-depth exploration of accountability, safety standards, and the human cost of industrial disasters.

Transcript

[Isabelle Stanley]

Seriously popular.

[Michael Kirban]

Now. You have a man out on the boat. Watch where I is in land. A little one. Me outside there.

[Isabelle Stanley]

I'm watching a press conference. A man is sitting at a plastic table in a dark car park with a crowd of women and children behind him. His eyes are red and his hands flare in frustration as he grips a microphone.

[Michael Kirban]

All I don't want the men who really want to rescue these guys outside on the site. They don't want us there. They cannot run this operation. They cannot run this operation.

[Isabelle Stanley]

He's dressed in overalls. He looks exhausted, on the verge of tears.

[Michael Kirban]

I was the only one of the other divers who was there.

[Isabelle Stanley]

His name is Michael Kerban and his father, Faisal is one of four divers currently trapped in an underwater oil pipe deep beneath the sea.

[Michael Kirban]

Our divers was ready to go in the line. We were ready to go and send.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Michael has been at the site of the accident for two days, desperately trying to rescue his father. When he first arrived, he was hopeful. He saw Christopher Boodram, one of the other divers, be pulled out of the pipe. And he had every reason to believe his father would be right behind him. He came up with three different rescue plans. He even dived into the pipe himself, trying to pull the other men out.

[Michael Kirban]

He was ready to go and send a diver down. Color divers ready, rigged and ready. But the orders the management give do not go in the line. For what reason?

[Isabelle Stanley]

Why?

[Michael Kirban]

Let's answer that. Let them answer that.

[Isabelle Stanley]

But it came to nothing. Michael's attempts to save his father were blocked.

[Michael Kirban]

The contractor, lmcs was ready and his guys was ready to rescue his own son. I was rescued. My father and my friends, right? He was ready. Everybody was ready. And now you want to recover them by pushing them with pressure.

[Isabelle Stanley]

And as he sits at that press conference, he's just been told that any hope of a rescue is gone. His father's body is about to be flushed out of the pipe. I'm Isabelle Stanley and you're listening to Pipeline Episode three Guns and Divers. So we are on a boat headed out from San Fernando Yacht Club where the families waited for news to birth six, which is where the accident happened. It's a very grey day and there is a quite ominous rainstorm on the horizon. So far we've only seen berth six from the hills in town, but as we get closer, it looms into focus and towers above the water.

[Kaz Amali Sr.]

That's fine. So it's not far. Probably about. We might take about five to 10 minutes to reach out there.

[Isabelle Stanley]

That's Michael Kirban Faisal's son. He's agreed to take us out to the site of the disaster. For anyone else, going to the place where their father died might be a terrifying thought. Not for Michael, these waters around San Fernando, but where he feels most at home.

[Kaz Amali Sr.]

I grew up here as real small doing these things, and as soon as I got the age as an adult, I started working here with my father at 18 years old. So I know everything I think about from a seabed, so it's not frightening to me.

[Isabelle Stanley]

We slowly draw up towards berth six and stop the boat about 100 meters away.

[Michael Kirban]

See where that vessel is out there?

[Kaz Amali Sr.]

That's number six. That's where the incident happened. We wouldn't be going too close, but we'll just keep at a safe point here.

[Isabelle Stanley]

The berths are small platforms out to sea, covered in a tangle of scaffolding and pipes. Ships drive in and dock at the berths. They connect to the pipes there and either fill up or empty their tanks of oil and gas to be taken to land. As we come to a stop, I can make out more details and for the first time I can see with my own eyes the section of pipe that the divers got trapped in. It's even smaller than I imagined. While Bella and I look at Burst six, our colleague Andy is back on land searching for some very important people. He's trying to find addresses for some of the managers at Pariah, the state owned oil company who employed LMCs for the job and who were in charge of the site on the day of the tragedy. We want to speak to three men in particular. Colin Piper, who was the instant commander on the day, his boss, the general manager of Paria, Mushtaq Mohammed, and then both of their bosses, the chair of the board of Paria, Newman, George. Because Paria is a state owned company, there's another man we'd need to speak to too. The energy minister at the time, Stuart Young. Back out at Berth 6, we turn to the day at the centre of our story. Where were you when you heard about the accident?

[Kaz Amali Sr.]

I was home. Yeah, I was home fixing my van and I got a phone call from my brother. So when he called me, he's like, like Michael, come outside and see what's going on here.

[Isabelle Stanley]

The second Michael hears there's been an accident, he grabs his uncle, Ronald Ramatar and friend Corey and heads to the dock. All of them are experienced divers. On the 25 minute boat journey from the dock to berth six, they get into their diving gear. It's about 5pm now and the divers have been missing for around two hours. Last episode we heard from Christopher what was happening inside the pipe in that time. The men were trapped in the dark, terrified and injured, trying to drag themselves out.

[Kaz Amali Sr.]

We asked what happened was taking place and we get a little small briefing from them like what happened.

[Isabelle Stanley]

When they get to berth six, they want to go straight underwater to look for the missing men. But there's a problem. Officials from Pariah, the state owned oil company that manages and has control over the psych, are there and they don't want them to dive.

[Ronald Ramatar]

But when we reach the first thing, well, people on the boat 6 the source were the diving gears.

[Isabelle Stanley]

That's Ronald Ramatar. We meet him back on land to hear his account of that day.

[Ronald Ramatar]

And they keep shouting on us, we do have permission to enter the water. Do not enter the water.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Who was that? Was that lmcs?

[Ronald Ramatar]

That was Pariah. But I didn't say nobody. As I reached, I went into the water.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Ronald ignores them. He dives under the water and swims down into the air filled room our divers were working in before they were sucked into the pipe.

[Ronald Ramatar]

I heard that voice calling, you know, as I heard that voice calling, I climb up. When I climb up and I look down inside the pipe, I saw Christopher. I take the rope, I tie some loops in the rope. I tell my, you gotta try put your foot in the loops, you know, climb up like a ladder. And that's how we get them out.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Ronald pulls Christopher from the pipe using the rope as a ladder.

[Ronald Ramatar]

I keep talking to him about what happened, what the other divers was, how far they was, if everybody okay or anything. And yes, and he keep telling me that, he said, yes, everybody's alive, they're in an air pocket.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Corey comes in and takes Christopher up to the surface. But Ronald stays back in the Habitat. He wants to see if there's anyone else coming up the pipe.

[Ronald Ramatar]

I took a chain block hook and I keep tapping it in pipe before tap the emergency signal.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Divers around the world use a tapping system to communicate when they can't see or speak to each other.

[Ronald Ramatar]

And when I tap, they tap back. Somebody tap back. I tap again, somebody tap back. I did it a few times. Every time somebody tapped back.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Ronald knows the men are still alive and he races back up to the surface to make a rescue plan with Michael. And they're not working alone.

[Kaz Amali Jr.]

I was on the shore. Yeah, just a boat right away.

[Isabelle Stanley]

That's Caz Amali Sr. Known as Kaz, the owner of lmcs. Remember not Only is he the employer of the divers. One of them, Kaz Jr. Is his son by now. It's about 6pm around three hours since the divers went missing. As of Friday evening, Friday afternoon what was your rescue plan that you were getting from LMCs?

[Kaz Amali Jr.]

There's only one thing you could do. Grab your divers and go down in there and first of all investigate what's going on and if you can help you do it. If not you come back and then we decide what's the next step. But basically what's your rescue plan for going in that room and picking up somebody? Yeah but we had two choices. Sit down or do not know, go in and see there's something we could do.

[Isabelle Stanley]

It's agreed that Michael will dive into the pipe. He'll climb in feet first with a long air hose to breathe from. Corey and Ronald will wait outside the pipe so that they can pull him out if they need to.

[Ronald Ramatar]

Me and Corey stayed on top. Michael went down inside. We had the tank with us. He just had the hose attached to him and he was breathing.

[Isabelle Stanley]

It's the stuff of nightmares diving into a tiny pitch black pipe filled with oily water. Michael doesn't know how far in he has to go and he doesn't know what state the men will be in if he finds them. But Christopher has told called Michael. His father is down there alive so he doesn't think twice. Out at birth six I asked Michael what he saw in the pipe.

[Kaz Amali Sr.]

You have no visibility there. It's strictly darkness. So it's all about feeling and that's it right? Yeah. And you're restricted to move so you just your, your body, you know 30 inch pipeline and I dove down and into the pipeline. I do have about 60ft six yeah for real 60ft. I dive straight down to the bend. I have a bend or a pipeline go down and then have a bend and that's where my line could reach so I couldn't go no more.

[Isabelle Stanley]

When Michael reaches the bend in the pipe his air hose runs out. He has to come back up. By now word is getting out and even more experienced divers are arriving at the site. So he's like at that point you have an expert and three very capable divers. So did you feel sort of confident in your ability to do a rescue?

[Ronald Ramatar]

Yes, at that time I had over 30 years experience in diving.

[Isabelle Stanley]

That's Ronald.

[Ronald Ramatar]

So I take lead because I know I was a senior diverist. Dawaitech leading here was oddly rider they.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Come up with two more plans and head to the surface to gather more equipment.

[Ronald Ramatar]

And by the time we came up hunting. Daiwen Parrier officials say Coast Guard come in, wait on Coast Guard.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Paria tells Ronald that the Coast Guard are coming to help.

[Ronald Ramatar]

We thought they were really trying to help because they told us wait on the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard coming to assist us. So we thought, good, okay. The Coast Guard have expo divers. They would come to us. So we, we really backed down and waited until the Coast Guard.

[Isabelle Stanley]

But when the Coast Guard finally arrives around two hours later, they have bad news.

[Ronald Ramatar]

They said they're not equipped for that. They're not trained for that. And they're not going down there. They're not even going inside the chamber.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Ronald and the others are furious. By now, the divers have been trapped in that tiny pitch black pipe for five hours.

[Ronald Ramatar]

So when he was like, we waste time, you know, all this time we could have done been inside there already.

[Isabelle Stanley]

They decide to take things into their own hands once again.

[Ronald Ramatar]

And then when we say, all right, where are we going? We divers going inside the pipe.

[Isabelle Stanley]

But just as they prepare to go into the water, the Coast Guard says stop.

[Ronald Ramatar]

And die. When they came, they tell us, no, we cannot go. And they came. But although they didn't point no gun running at us, there was inside arm and automatic weapon.

[Isabelle Stanley]

So they were holding automatic weapons.

[Ronald Ramatar]

They didn't point it at us. But you know that are going alone. That is enough to fit the higher in fear.

[Isabelle Stanley]

So did they come and were they standing on the berth with their weapons and they were saying, don't dive, don't go.

[Ronald Ramatar]

And they say it in a firm voice too. Yeah, more than once. Keep on saying it. Don't go. We don't have to go.

[Isabelle Stanley]

The Coast Guard are armed and intended consistent. Ronald and the others aren't allowed to go back into the water.

[Ronald Ramatar]

So they said that it's not a shout yet, you know, to say to cut to confirm it. But then we backed down. We realized they were serious and there was more than one of them with firearm. They had a lot of Coast Guard they would firearm. And we backed down.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Back on the boat, looking out at the place where this happened, I asked Michael Kirban how that moment felt.

[Kaz Amali Sr.]

The stop us. So that's when I get angry. That's the only time I get angry. And I just went, I said, I said, what are really going on here? You know, my dad, Kazim Yousef, everybody was there. Remember we pull out Christopher or the pipeline and he made it clear so that everybody's still living in the pipeline. I Just tell them, you know, I say, hey, what was really going on here? You know, why all the stuff we wait for, we can't stop it. We're going to rescue these guys all are we family down there with friends.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Down there on land. Kaz is getting very frustrated and desperately worried. His divers, including his son, have been inside that pipe for coming up on seven hours.

[Kaz Amali Jr.]

And I was calling back barrier.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Yeah.

[Kaz Amali Jr.]

CEO, the marine manager with Piper and the person on the berth Catherine.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Kaz is pushing paria to let LMCs do a rescue. Calling Colin Piper, who is running Paria's emergency response team, and Katherine Balcosun, who is Paria's representative at birth six on the day. Piper tells Kaz that before a rescue can take place, he wants to insert a camera into the pipe to check it is safe for divers to enter.

[Kaz Amali Jr.]

Okay, but Ms. Alan, we waited too long. The camera is on the way. I'll be here, so I have to be reasonable. Okay, well, we wait a few moments to get the camera.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Kaz is trying to be understanding for the hours are ticking by knowing how this tragedy ends. There's one question on my mind. Why didn't Kaz ignore Paria's orders and send his men into that pipe anyway?

[Kaz Amali Jr.]

Under instruction, do not dive. It wasn't a request. It wasn't a request to a dive. It was an instruction not to dive. And we have people there to stop you. I couldn't tell them to go when parallel said, don't go get something happens to them.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Yeah.

[Kaz Amali Jr.]

So all they wanted was no objection from Pariah. They didn't want permission from them to say, go ahead. But it's different when somebody tell them, don't go in there. And I couldn't instruct. I wouldn't instruct somebody to go in. And then I tried to try to negotiate with them to get them to go in.

[Isabelle Stanley]

So what did Paria give as their reason to say, no, you can't go into the pipe?

[Kaz Amali Jr.]

They didn't get me written down. They can say, hey, nobody's going.

[Isabelle Stanley]

A camera finally goes into the pipe at midnight. By now the men have been trapped, injured and terrified inside for nine hours.

[Kaz Amali Jr.]

They lowered it down on the cord. When they reached the bottom of the Chrysler, which was 45ft below sea level, it couldn't go.

[Isabelle Stanley]

The camera can only go a few dozen feet around the bend in the pipe. Parry's plan is back to square one.

[Ronald Ramatar]

So probably just before midnight we heard they was going to send our camera and, well, we saw the camera crew come and but they didn't ask us to go with him.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Ronald is waiting on berth six and.

[Ronald Ramatar]

Me and Michael the one was inside it. We the one know the condition, Christopher know the condition. But the higher outside divers to come and see to ask them all the conditions at the pipeline.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Paria tries again with a second camera at 3am but that one can't get past an oxygen tank just beyond the bend in the pipe. Ronald, Michael and LMCs watch powerless as it gets later and later they are still banned from attempting a rescue.

[Ronald Ramatar]

I see there for the entire night, right?

[Isabelle Stanley]

What were you doing? Were you satisfied on the boat or.

[Ronald Ramatar]

Just waiting while you're walking up and down? Everybody was just pacing and some people could sit down and sleep, some people could just sleep. But you know when you're waiting you're like you're anxious, you're walking, you're walking back and forth from the boat to the barge, you're walking.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Overnight birth six essentially comes to a halt.

[Ronald Ramatar]

I probably took a little sleep maybe around three o' clock for a few hours. Yeah.

[Isabelle Stanley]

And was the like atmosphere tense? I mean it sounds like people were kind of panicking.

[Ronald Ramatar]

Yes it was tense but then I think nobody knows, nobody can answer a question, nobody know what going on. Well it wasn't like they telling us nothing in it just like rumors are the spread now because they wasn't giving us direct information.

[Isabelle Stanley]

While the berth grows quiet and the divers try to doze off in shifts, one noise continues, one terrifying noise that sounds like a countdown in the waiting rescuers minds. Ever since Christopher was pulled out of the pipe, the other divers still trapped inside have kept tapping desperately signaling to their friends above the water that they're alive and they're waiting to be rescued.

[Katherine Alley]

Tap loud and they tapped it out of back, tap soft and, and they taps off. So there was a response, there was a communication. It wasn't a random noise.

[Isabelle Stanley]

That's Katherine Alley, Kaz's wife and the mother of Kaz Jr. Every time an LMCS employee on Berth 6 hears tapping they tell Kaz and Katherine who are waiting on land and it's still going. In the early hours of Saturday morning, 12 hours after the men were sucked in, Christopher comes out, you know that there's knocking in the pipe. Is that a comfort to you or is it in a way more frustrating?

[Kaz Amali Jr.]

It's comfort because they're alive. We know they're alive. That's more than we knew before.

[Katherine Alley]

But you know they're suffering too.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Back on land, ever since the divers went missing it's been chaos.

[Vanessa]

And my hand started to shake because I could not hold the phone.

[Isabelle Stanley]

That's Vanessa, Rishi's wife. She finds out Rishi is missing from a random acquaintance who rings to tell her there's been an accident.

[Vanessa]

I just felt that it's not true. What he's saying is not true. Although I was in tears, I was screaming. You could have heard my voice sounding from the corners of my street because the way I was screaming, yelling, and this cannot be true.

[Isabelle Stanley]

She leaves her and Rishi's young son, baby Nashik, with her sister and rushes to Paris office. She arrives at their car park at 6pm, three hours after the accident. They won't let her into the building and there's no official there to greet her. Her uncle approaches the security booth to ask what's going on.

[Vanessa]

They looked at each other and they was like, no, no accident. And then he said, you sure it has no accident, Gil? She said, no, no accident. They have no accident here. She have no idea there's an accident.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Vanessa and her uncle start stopping random cars going in and out of the Paria office looking for any information.

[Vanessa]

One person particular, he were going into Pariah and when he were going into the compound, he mentioned. When my uncle asked him about the accident, he mentioned yes. He said, yes, there's an accident. And he told us the time a little bit after lunch or so. And my heart started to beat so fast because all these hours and nobody had the courtesy to call us.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Then they see an ambulance leave. They run over and stop the driver who says they have taken one man out of the pipe. But they won't tell them who it is or what happened. Vanessa has no choice but to walk away and wait. It's getting dark and it starts to rain.

[Vanessa]

So we asked for an extension to get some light and they were denied. They told them no, no, no. They were not given any permission to take, to give any plugs for any plugs to give the families any light. So we stayed in the dark, we waited there. We asked them again if any info for their families. You know, no lights, no water, no toilet facilities, no food, no drink.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Words start spreading around town and generous local vehicles start bringing basic supplies to the car park.

[Vanessa]

I saw the vans coming in with toilets and with a tent rental and that's what I could remember. They were all turned away.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Why wouldn't Paria let them in?

[Vanessa]

I have no idea.

[Isabelle Stanley]

As evening draws in, more of the divers family members trickle into the car park, trading scraps of information and hiding from the rain under the one tiny bus shelter. Aficia, Yousef's sister is there with their mother, Nicole.

[Afisha Yousef]

We stood there and I told my mom, it's a long way back home. How about we stay here? And if it is real, if this is true, people want to come. We're going to find out. So let's just stay in the car park.

[Isabelle Stanley]

As night falls, the families retreat to their cars and sleep in shifts in case any information emerges.

[Afisha Yousef]

So we decided we're gonna pull in this little car. And we all stood in the car park in the rain, but we couldn't come out, so we was trapped. We was in the car and we slept there.

[Isabelle Stanley]

He arrived 8:30, slept there overnight, woke up 5:00am There was no water, no food, no support we would take.

[Afisha Yousef]

We were. We were working on shifts. He knew for sure Yusuf was there because his car was in the car park. Let's just say around 5am, sun is starting to rise and I seeing people, I said, mommy, this is real.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Early Saturday morning, the rain stops and word spreads through the car park that Parria is going to hold a meeting with the families that afternoon.

[Afisha Yousef]

Like a truckload of like four officials. They had on a uniform, so I assumed they were security officers. And they came with a message and they said, hey, I came out with a message for the families. Pario officials want to have a meeting with you all. And all of that. And everybody got crazy and loud.

[Isabelle Stanley]

The meeting will take place 24 hours after their loved ones were sucked into the pipe. And it will be the first update of any kind that Paria has given the families.

[Vanessa]

We had hopes, so much hopes. They come in to let the family know that there was a rescue plan.

[Isabelle Stanley]

That's Vanessa again, Rishi's wife.

[Vanessa]

We all said, okay, well, soon, right, they'll take them out. We had so much hope, so for them to be taken out.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Trinidad's energy minister, Stuart Young has flown back into the country from a trip to host the meeting, along with the general manager of Pariah, Mushtaq Mohammed.

[Afisha Yousef]

And they came now and they was like, they had all these rules, no cell phone.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Afisha Yousef's sister.

[Afisha Yousef]

They were talking to us like we, like we send those boys down there. And Stuart Young came and he's yapping, yapping and telling us about his, how much our flight, and we don't care.

[Isabelle Stanley]

When Stuart Young starts to talk about the accident, he doesn't give the families a rescue plan. I've seen a video of the meeting.

[Michael Kirban]

As I told you on a short.

[Afisha Yousef]

While ago, it can be no guarantee and no assurance.

[Isabelle Stanley]

The assurance we need to get is.

[Michael Kirban]

That they're doing everything possible to find your loved ones.

[Isabelle Stanley]

All right, at this point, something happens that at first I really couldn't believe.

[Michael Kirban]

So they're working now.

[Isabelle Stanley]

In response to that question from a terrified family member asking what they're doing to get their loved ones out of that pipe, the manager of Paria, Mushtaq Mohammed, well, he laughs and Mustaq, he.

[Vanessa]

Had on a mask and Mushtaq bent his head and he laughed. Laughed. I have it on my phone. I have a video. He laughed at us and the families. He laughed at Stoica and how he being stupid too, because he don't know what is going on. And he come to talk with the family.

[Isabelle Stanley]

It's impossible to know what he was thinking in that moment, but Afisha and Nicole will remember it too.

[Afisha Yousef]

He just was laughing. And at this point, you're desperate for answers. You're scared, but now anger is consuming.

[Nicole Yousef]

You because at a time like this, what is funny? And one family member believes from the Cuban said, at least you could laugh and you find this funny. But we here now wondering if our loved ones are alive or dead, you know, so they kind of assured us like, you know, to relax, that everything is being done. And I specifically asked the question twice. I said, as we speak, is there operations taking place out there to rescue? And the two times I was told.

[Ronald Ramatar]

Yes, I stood up and I talk. I say, I am the diver who pull out the survivor.

[Isabelle Stanley]

That meeting was too much for Ronald to bear.

[Ronald Ramatar]

And I know nothing has been done for the entire night after we pull out the survivor, nothing again has been done. No diver had went in and they stopped us from going in. They always say they've come up with a plan and they didn't want to take our plan. And, you know, nothing is being done. But then they keep saying, well, a rescue is being attempted. But I let them know nothing is being done.

[Isabelle Stanley]

He knows that since yesterday afternoon when Parry banned him and LMCs from diving, no one has been back inside that pipe. After the meeting, paria makes a WhatsApp group with the families. Vanessa shows it to me in the first message sent at 2:37pm on Saturday, almost exactly 24 hours after the men were sucked into the pipe. Paria says they will provide an update within the next hour. That update never came. While the families resume their vigil in the car park, Kaz is trying to meet up with Mushtaq Mohammed to get him to approve a Rescue attempt all.

[Kaz Amali Jr.]

Day long I was trying to meet with Mushtaq and he kept hiding with him.

[Isabelle Stanley]

He wouldn't talk to you?

[Kaz Amali Jr.]

He wasn't there? Yeah, I was in there. I wasted about four hours in there waiting for him. When I talked to Catherine, I talked to Michael. Boy, we have Mushtaqi to anyone.

[Katherine Alley]

He has to give the OK.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Finally, at 5pm on Saturday, Kaz manages to get through to Mushtaq.

[Kaz Amali Jr.]

And then at 5 o' clock in the evening then he come and tell me. Oh well, okay, but bring your diver tomorrow and we'll talk about it. Yes, you're talking about men. Not by not.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Yeah, every hour counts at that point.

[Kaz Amali Jr.]

So five o' clock in the evening, you should bring him in the morning.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Mushtaq tells Kaz to bring his rescue plan back the next morning.

[Kaz Amali Jr.]

That's another 12 hours gonna be lost. And according to the eclops report, Kaz was still alive.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Kaz now knows from his son's autopsy that there's a chance he was alive that whole time for up to 39 hours. Inside the pipe as the sun sets on Saturday, the families are still sitting in the car park. Ronald and Michael are back pacing on the berth and they're all staring down another long miserable night of waiting. They don't get any more news until Sunday and then they get an update at the same time the rest of the country does. At 7pm Paria calls a press conference and invites all the journalists and commentators that have descended on the town over the weekend. And when they are all gathered, without warning the families beforehand and with very little preamble, the chairman of Paria Newman George makes an announcement.

[Kaz Amali Jr.]

Based on advice from all the experts, the operation has now moved from rescue to recovery. The experts have also agreed on a joint effort which will see a water displacement process being used to gradually push the bodies along the 400 meter pipeline to where they can successfully be recovered at birth.

[Isabelle Stanley]

6 Just like that, 48 hours after the men were sucked into the pipe, it's over.

[Nicole Yousef]

I shut down. I couldn't speak to nobody. I just took a chair and I sat and I was just looking into the compound and just hoping that I could see or hear something.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Nicole youssef's MOTHER it was so bizarre.

[Nicole Yousef]

I totally shut down. I couldn't talk no more with anybody. I just wanted him back alive.

[Vanessa]

My sister was with me so she couldn't hold me up and she started yelling for help. And then I just so like blurry. I saw black.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Vanessa is still in the car park when she hears the news.

[Vanessa]

And within that I was hearing her screaming for help. They put me on a chair. They tried to revive me from the faint. They put smelling salt and stuff.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Michael Kirban is incandescent with rage and grief. He's been at the Parry offices and birth six trying to rescue his father for two days. He heads to Parry's car park and sets up his own press conference. That's the one you heard earlier.

[Michael Kirban]

Don't want the men who really want to rescue these guys, they need to go to jail. They need to go to jail. They cannot run this operation. They cannot run this operation.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Right.

[Michael Kirban]

I was rescued, my father and my friends.

[Isabelle Stanley]

That night Par gets ready to pump the divers bodies out of the line.

[Ronald Ramatar]

But we see things was preparing like they was preparing the flush of the line. You know, they see equipment coming. We see but then the whole night sun and nothing.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Ronald is there to watch.

[Ronald Ramatar]

Monday morning they start pumping the line. They told us they start pumping the line. We was just there, but they're trying to stop us because at that time they take our phone out.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Harrier puts up tarpaulins around the entrance to the pipe and then takes their phones so they can't share what they're seeing.

[Ronald Ramatar]

When the first body come out, you see diving tank come out. You see the other two bodies came out and they keep pumping, pumping the pump a while and they realized the fourth one wasn't coming out.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Three bodies emerge on Monday. They know one of them is Faisal and the other is Youssef. But they aren't sure about the third. It could either be Kaz Jr. Or Vanessa's husband, Rishi. She's called in to see if she can tell they're the same size and they were wearing the same dive suit. Because Kaz Jr. Would always buy Rishi ones as a gift. When he bought his own.

[Vanessa]

He did bought the identical same thing for him to wear. So they had matching suits.

[Isabelle Stanley]

But when Vanessa looks at the body, she knows I feel it here.

[Vanessa]

It's not him. There's nothing in it. I see nothing in him.

[Isabelle Stanley]

They don't flush Rishi's body out the pipe for another three days. Do you feel looking back that there was anything you would have done differently?

[Kaz Amali Jr.]

Easy now. I would have egot parents instruction. You see, like I say, if I myself would dive in, I would say to hell with them. Well, you shoot me if you want, but I couldn't force someone else too. Someone else to do it.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Katherine, did you ever doubt for a second that Kaz had done everything he could.

[Katherine Alley]

Well, I knew that he was suffering terribly and I knew that he was being pulled in several directions. His heart was pulling him in another direction. His men, the men who work and the women who work with us, are very loyal because it's a good company who has treated them well. So they felt it as a terrible loss and they wanted to do everything they could.

[Isabelle Stanley]

In the days after the men were flushed out, lines were drawn in the sand. LMCS released a statement accusing Paria of stopping them from rescuing their divers. Paria responded claiming that they had done everything they could to rescue the men and that it was too dangerous to do any more. But I still have little sense of what the key decision makers in Paria were actually doing for much of those first two days, or crucially, why they were doing it. I need to talk to them. Remember, Andy was trying to track down the Paria personnel who were in charge that day. He gets lucky. He manages to find the addresses for Colin Piper and Mushtaq Mohammed. And it turns out that Colin Piper lives just down the road from where we're staying. Since the accident three years ago, Colin Piper has retired and he's still embroiled in active legal proceedings linked to the the tragedy. So it's unlikely he'll talk, but it's worth a try. So we are currently driving through a lovely part of San Fernando to Colin Piper's house. So we are going to ask him a few questions if he will come out.

[Andy Uring]

That's 518, so it's going to be the next one, I think. You can't stop here, so I'll just get out, you pull away and then I'll give you a call. I'm done.

[Isabelle Stanley]

We'll wait at the top of the hill.

[Ronald Ramatar]

Yeah.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Andy's hopping out to knock on the door now. Godspeed. Andy goes up to knock.

[Andy Uring]

Just walking up to his house, see if anyone's in. Doesn't immediately look like there's any cars on the drive, although the window is open, which is a good sign. Just ring the doorbell.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Next time on Pipeline, we hear Parry's account of that day.

[Ronald Ramatar]

Put yourself in that position on that evening when you have to make a decision to send a man into a pipeline a quarter of a mile long. You have no idea what this man is going to face. You are accountable for that man's life. If you believe that I just sat there. You simply do not understand what we went through that night.

[Kaz Amali Sr.]

Once the line was emptied, they created that situation.

[Isabelle Stanley]

It had to be activated by the process. They were going and it's basically at that point a death trap.

[Kaz Amali Sr.]

Yeah, death chape.

[Kaz Amali Jr.]

They did nothing.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Hour after hour, just waiting for a camera.

[Kaz Amali Jr.]

And then we got a camera and it didn't work.

[Isabelle Stanley]

I'm sorry. I find that extraordinary.

[Kaz Amali Jr.]

Piper say that he didn't want to.

[Isabelle Stanley]

Risk nobody else life. That wasn't the best decision. That's the best decision for his company and he to do. We contacted Paria, the Coast Guard, Mushtaq Mohammed, Colin Piper and Stuart Young for comment, but we have not yet had a response. Pipeline is presented by me, Isabelle Stanley. This produced by Bella Soames. Sound design is by John Scott. Additional reporting by Andy Uring. Additional production by John Rogers. And our executive executive producer is Jamie East.