New Christmas Island radar failed to detect stricken asylum boat

A RADAR system installed on Christmas Island after last December's shipwreck did not detect a stricken asylum boat that was ultimately rescued by volunteers on Sunday.

Border Protection Command yesterday confirmed the failure as the island received another boat carrying 116 asylum-seekers and five crew -- the largest arrival since Julia Gillard's Malaysia Solution was killed off by the High Court in August.

HMAS Maitland intercepted the latest boat about 15 nautical miles offshore after someone aboard called 000. The RAAF found the boat but it was not in imminent danger and a decision was made to monitor it as it approached the island.

A Border Protection Command spokeswoman said multiple radars were in use on Sunday when the earlier boat of 78 asylum-seekers approached the island undetected.

Radar was in use in the vicinity during the period over which the vessel arrived but did not identify or locate it, she said. Border Protection Command learned of Sunday's boat at about 5.30pm (9.30pm AEDT) after an asylum-seeker claiming to be on board called 000.

In a night search co-ordinated by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, the island's Volunteer Marine Rescue found the boat adrift without power and being pushed towards jagged cliffs in the swell.

HMAS Maitland arrived about 20 minutes later and loaded some of the asylum-seekers onto rubber boats. The rest stayed on board the 20m wooden boat and the volunteers used their 7.3m rescue vessel to tow them into Flying Fish Cove.

The failure of radar to alert authorities to boats has become a topic of debate since the SIEV 221 tragedy on December 15 last year in which 50 people died after huge swells smashed their boat onto the island's rocky cliffs.