When King Bhumibol died on October 13, 2016, the nation plunged into deep mourning. His passing came after years of serious illness and hospitalizations, but his loss was almost unthinkable for many Thais. Hundreds of thousands gathered around the Grand Palace, holding his portrait and weeping. A year of mourning began. Almost everyone wore black. There were no major concerts. Even the annual Water Festival was subdued. King Bhumibol’s cremation ceremony twelve months later was an epic spectacle, with an elaborate catafalque crafted by the kingdom’s finest artists to hold his casket one last time before the smoke drifted across the royal field of Sanam Luang, ending an era.
His successor was his son, then-sixty-four-year-old Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn. The public was less familiar with their new king, who had completed military training in Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom, and now spent most of his time in Germany. Since ascending the throne, King Vajiralongkorn had made some decisive moves, including intervening to end an unseemly dispute about who should be the next supreme patriarch, or top monk of Thailand, and taking direct control of the Crown Property Bureau, estimated to be worth upward of $30 billion.
The kingdom was watching and waiting to see what kind of monarch he would be. But there was little open talk about the new king. Thailand has the world’s harshest laws against defaming the monarchy, often known by the French term lèse-majesté. Among Thais, it was usually called “112,” the number of the law that forbids criticism of the king, queen, heir to the throne, or regent. This number was close to the phone number for a popular pizza delivery service, so it became shorthand for the much-feared law: “Careful or you’ll get a pizza.” But the punishment was no laughing matter—up to fifteen years in jail for each transgression, with a 96 percent conviction rate. (For this reason, a full discussion of the current king or royal affairs here is not possible; self-censorship is the only way for a journalist to remain in Thailand.)
King Bhumibol had asked his people not to overuse lèse-majesté, but, over many years, the reach of the law had slowly spread to encompass anything vaguely related to royalty. In 2015, a man was jailed for making a comment about the king’s dog that was deemed to be sarcastic. In 2017, a student activist was convicted and sentenced to two years in prison for sharing a seemingly mild BBC profile of the new king.
Over the course of the search-and-rescue mission, King Vajiralongkorn remained in Germany, with his young son. But it was clear he was watching closely. When the instructions to extract the soccer team quickly were given, his subjects knew they must do everything humanly possible to pull off this rescue. It was a royal intervention and one of the first major public—if discreet—acts of Thailand’s new king.
Suttisak was also about to step into the role of a politician.
His new idea involved what was known in the mining business as “directional drilling.” This is a much more sophisticated technique that allows long-bore holes to be made, using a drill bit that can change direction underground. But in order for this idea to work, he needed the right equipment and expertise.
On Tuesday, he posted his idea on Facebook. A friend from the engineer’s university days called to offer his help. That friend now worked at PTT, the Thai-owned oil company. Engineers from the Thailand office of the US company Chevron also got in touch.
On Wednesday, Suttisak flew back to Chiang Rai Province and called a meeting at a secret location, away from the media, in a building not far from the soccer field where the Wild Boars had played their friendly match twelve days earlier. But the venue wasn’t the only secret. He had invited the engineers from PTT without telling them their business rivals from Chevron were also invited. It was a risky strategy, but quite deliberate.
“When you work with intelligent people like this, they have their own ego,” Suttisak explained. “It’s better for them to come together at the same time.”
As they arrived at the meeting, each party was surprised to find their commercial competitors there as well. Suttisak called them around a table. Thirteen men sat in plastic chairs, while others stood behind them. The engineer got them up to speed, holding up diagrams and turning his laptop around for them to see. Then he made it personal.
“I told them, ‘Now we put the lives of thirteen kids on the table. . . . Try your best.’”
Suttisak had no idea how this meeting would turn out. Usually, Thais were used to working more as subordinates of a higher authority, rarely daring to question up, while Americans were the opposite, used to having their say. Chevron was also a much bigger company than PTT. But on the other hand, Thailand was PTT’s home turf. Would the Thai engineers feel insulted or intimidated by having the Americans at the table? There was no time to work it all out; no time for clever politics. Suttisak had simply got the best minds he could find around a table and thrown down the challenge. Recasting the scene as a gangster movie with a meeting of Mafia bosses, he later described his strategy as “empowering the wise guys.” But would it work? Or would it end up in an ideological shoot-out?
At first, it was awkward. Then, cautiously, the two teams began to discuss. They focused on the problem, and as the technical talk gained momentum, the rivalries soon faded into the background.
“This was an amazing moment,” said Suttisak.
Suttisak also had some fresh information to share. That morning, he and his team had done an experiment in Saitong Cave. They had placed sensitive measuring devices called “geo-phones” at intervals on the outside of the mountain, several hundred yards from the cave. The engineers walked past Thanet’s groundwater pumping team into the darkness. Inside the cave, one of them swung a sledgehammer, making a solid strike against the rock. The engineers could then calculate how long it took the shockwaves to reach the various geo-phones and use that data to triangulate exactly where the sound had come from.
They were confident they could replicate this experiment in Tham Luang, providing an elusive part of the puzzle—the exact location of the chamber where the Wild Boars were stranded.
The engineers from Chevron and PTT talked it over. Could they perhaps drill another hole into the cave system and drain the water? And what were the risks? Finally, they came back to Suttisak. Their conclusions were both encouraging and horrifying.
The directional drilling plan would involve building a tower and base, much like an oil rig. The drill would be sent down into the earth, then gradually make a ninety-degree turn and travel underneath Tham Luang cave toward the Wild Boars. A high-tech gyroscopic device fitted to the tip could track exactly where the drill was and line it up with the target: one of the deepest sections of flooded tunnel. The water would then drain through the drilled hole, hopefully to the extent that the Wild Boars could wade out. It could be a slow process, though: there were ten to fifteen fully flooded sections of the cave—depending on the water level—and the drill would need to drain each one. But at this point, every fallback option was worth considering.
The engineers thought it would take between fifteen and thirty days to prepare. Upon hearing that time frame, Suttisak immediately dubbed this scheme “Plan C.”
But the mixed team of oil and gas experts had more to say.
“The result of the risk assessment . . . was quite frightening,” said Suttisak.
They explained that draining the water from the sump might create negative air pressure, sucking the oxygen out of the cave. The boys, Coach Ek, Dr. Pak, and the SEALs would be dry—but dead.
Even if they equipped the team with oxygen masks, the engineers couldn’t predict how powerful the suction would be. Suttisak worried that the pressure might burst the boys’ eardrums, or worse.
Far from being disheartened, the engineers doubled down. What might work was two drills. They proposed that a hole could be drilled into the roof of the cave system and air pumped in. Then a second drill could pierce the bottom of the sump and drain the water. It would be risky. It would be expensive. It would take time. And it would drain only one sump before n
eeding to be repositioned. But it was an option, and their job had been to come up with alternatives.
The next day, a brand-new directional drilling platform was made available by a major Thai construction company. Other parts needed for the rig were located and put on standby, ready to send from Europe. Within twenty-four hours, the complex Plan C was ready to be put into action.
Suttisak felt excited: he now had a lot to take into the war-room briefing on Friday evening.
17
The Little Things
The rescue operation was now of an unprecedented scale, with millions of dollars’ worth of resources poured into the effort. But it was in fact the little things that sometimes made the biggest difference and kept people going when times were tough.
The Wild Boars of course remained unaware of the machinations happening outside. Once Dr. Pak and the SEALs had joined them, the atmosphere in the cave changed completely. It wasn’t just the gels and medical care that they provided; their company lifted the Wild Boars’ spirits immeasurably. They were no longer alone.
The inhabitants of Nern Nom Sao told stories and played games. The most popular game was checkers. The SEALs showed the boys how to carve out an eight-by-eight checkerboard into the dry mud with their diving knives, and make pieces out of mud. The rules were simple enough: use your pieces to zigzag across the board to the back row to earn a king piece, capturing the enemy’s pieces along the way. It was an apt game. The loser was the one who ran out of options, their final piece trapped.
Only one boy didn’t take part: Titan. He was too afraid of losing. The rest played for hours, moving mud around in the lamplight. The champion soon became clear and one of the SEALs, known as Bai Toey, was crowned “King of the Cave.” Not much is known about the three SEALs, who remain semi-anonymous for operational reasons. But glimpses of Bai Toey’s humorous personality would later shine through, when the SEALs appeared at press conferences wearing sunglasses and a surgical mask. Bai Toey got a big laugh when he introduced himself as “the most handsome one in the cave.” The boys were amused by his habit of wearing just his underpants, with a silver space blanket wrapped around his waist. After the long days of isolation, the camaraderie the military men brought to the cave was heartening for the Wild Boars.
“I felt that Pee Bai Toey was like a father to me, because he calls me ‘son,’” said Mark.
“I felt great,” said Pong. “They’d find something for us to do and we’d have fun. They liked to tell us stories.”
“We ate, slept together,” said Coach Ek. “We became quite attached—just like a member of the family.”
It was the same for the SEALs and Dr. Pak.
“For those nine days, we had to share everything with each other,” said the army doctor. “Whether it’s food or making sure that the children are happy and safe. I have a son myself and [the three SEALs] all have children as well, they are a similar age as our sons. Staying together makes us feel like we are a family.”
The Euro family was also growing. Coinciding with Ben and the other three leaving came an influx of fresh diving instructors—Ivan, Erik, Mikko, and Claus—who’d flown in from southern Thailand.
Ivan, a Danish diver, was tall and lean, with a crew cut graying at the sides. He’d been in Thailand for twelve years and was co-owner of Koh Tao Tec Divers. His partner in the business was Mikko Paasi, a Finn. Mikko had dark dreadlocks and a beard. Erik Brown, another Koh Tao instructor, hailed from Canada. Claus Rasmussen was a mate of Ben’s from Phuket, a co-owner of Blue Label Diving. All were experienced technical divers, with loads of cave dives under their belts.
But the diving at Tham Luang was next-level stuff, an endurance test for body and nerves. Over the following few days, the new recruits to the Euro team would be assigned tasks that sent them deeper and deeper into the cave. These jobs needed to be done, sure, but John and Rick were also verifying the skills of these four divers, whom they’d only just met.
Erik, Ivan, Claus, and Mikko delivered tanks and cleaned up the route, using cable ties to bundle wires and pipes and reduce potential snags. They also reorganized the way the guideline ran through the cave. This may seem subtle but actually made a huge difference. During the early days, when the rope had been used by divers without much cave experience, they pulled strongly on the line and often yanked it from its anchor points. This created a slack and meant the rope would pull tight against corners, and lead divers along walls rather than guiding them down a clear part of the flooded tunnel. At times the line led them straight into obstacles that could have been avoided. The new Euro-Scandinavian-Canadian team did their best to neaten up the route.
Often they’d be underground and wet for more than twelve hours at a time. Sustaining themselves during these long dives was yet another challenge. They could take some water and snacks in for themselves, but it was just more to carry. Ivan found out the hard way that a certain brand of muesli bar didn’t have waterproof wrappers. The energy gels helped. Mostly they just went hungry.
But the Euro team had a secret weapon. They had Moo. Moo was a Thai guy who quickly worked out how everyone liked their coffee and what their favorite foods were. Ivan was vegetarian, so Moo found the nonmeat offerings cooked up by the volunteers. The Euro divers would emerge from their arduous efforts to find Moo with a spread of delicacies ready. It was an extremely welcome touch.
But Moo had an entrepreneurial side. The border town of Mae Sai was flush with cheap goods, and Moo was more than happy to do purchasing runs for his team. Strangely, everything seemed to cost 100 baht ($3)—except, of course, the commando knives that Moo had specially engraved as mementos of the rescue. These cost quite a bit more—and they sold like hotcakes.
The little things could make a big difference—for better and for worse.
One of the big jobs was to get the spare air tanks into the cave. Each cylinder weighed fifteen kilograms (about thirty-three pounds), but they were often strapped together to form a forty-five-kilogram (one hundred–pound) bundle. Much of the heavy lifting was done by the Australian Federal Police officers and the Americans. All told, they would haul an estimated twenty-two tons of equipment into the cave. But the spare tanks still needed to be dived through the sumps to their designated caches. Much of this work was done by the Euro team divers.
On Thursday, July 5, Ivan had been delivering tanks deep into Tham Luang, staging the spare air they needed to get safely to and from the Wild Boars. He’d strap three cylinders together and attach them to his harness, trailing the awkward bundle between his legs underwater as he pulled himself along the guide rope, with another three tanks attached to his body for his own breathing.
Ivan was done for the day and preparing for the walk out. By now the pumps had partly drained the first two sumps closest to the entrance. But there was still the sixteen-foot section of flooded tunnel between Chambers 3 and 2—the S-bend. While most of the divers’ equipment could be left at the Chamber 3 camp, this annoying puddle meant they had to, at the very least, use a tank, mask, and a helmet to cross it. As Ivan readied himself to head out of the cave, there was a glitch in a procedure that was usually muscle memory: “I put my helmet on, but I forgot to lock it.”
As soon as he descended, the helmet lifted off the top of his head. Moments later, as he was feeling his way through the sump, Ivan’s bare head bumped into the rock overhead. He cursed into his regulator.
The helmet was purpose-made for diving, worth a bit of money and absolutely necessary for this rescue, which involved dozens of head bumps each dive.
“I went down there with a flashlight for ten minutes, but I couldn’t find it; it was soup,” he said.
Ivan trudged back to the cave entrance without his helmet.
That Thursday night, we left the cave site and started to walk down the hill—Jum, David, and me. The evening news package had run, the late-night live TV remotes had been done, and we’d filed some material for the morning—TV and radio. The rescue operation was in a p
eriod of intense behind-the-scenes planning, with little shared with the waiting media. But there was still heavy demand for content. The beast needed to be fed. The main updates still came from the twice-daily press conferences led by Governor Narongsak. Frustratingly, the Australian Federal Police refused to do interviews. Their six men were playing a fantastic role, helping to carry equipment into the cave. We’d see them back at our threadbare hotel in Mae Sai some evenings, standing around the front courtyard still in their wet suits, half stripped to the waist. But their bosses didn’t make it easy for us to tell their story to the taxpayers who funded them.
On the Australian military side, Defence Warrant Officer Chris Moc managed to get authorization to give me an interview. He was based in Bangkok and we’d met once with the Australian ambassador to discuss the unique role Australia had played in providing horses for the cremation parade for King Bhumibol. It was the Thai-speaking Warrant Officer Moc who shared a bit of horse-racing trivia that unites Australia and Thailand: the legendary horse Phar Lap was named after the Thai word for lightning. Thankfully there wasn’t much pharlap in the skies as we spoke outside the cave, and the rain stayed away.
The Americans were much better at public relations. Their main spokeswoman was Captain Jessica Tait, the one who was “spooked out” during her first trip into Tham Luang. A thirty-year-old communications specialist of Korean-American background, she embraced her role at Tham Luang with passion, giving interview after interview, patiently waiting for cameras to be ready, suffering through the same obvious questions and giving what sounded like enthusiastic answers each time. Her energy was remarkable.
Captain Tait’s role was to talk to the media so her colleagues could get on with their work: helping the Thais to plan the rescue. The Americans were widely credited by rescue workers for their organizational skills and ability to bring key people into the rescue efforts. They bridged gaps, connected people to resources, and took a leadership role on behalf of the foreigners at Tham Luang. Because the Americans chose to engage the press, Jessica was able to get across the message that the Thais were in charge and the US contingent were there to support them.
Miracle in the Cave Page 13