Luna Park sits on the north shore of Sydney Harbour at Milsons Point, beneath the northern end of the Harbour Bridge, behind its famous giant laughing face. On the night of Saturday, June 9, 1979, its Ghost Train, a dark ride that had run since the park opened in 1935, caught fire with riders inside. Seven people died: John Godson and his sons Damien and Craig, visiting Sydney from the country town of Warren, and four 12- and 13-year-old schoolboys from Waverley College, Jonathan Billings, Richard Carroll, Michael Johnson and Seamus Rahilly. More than four decades on, how the fire started has never been settled.
What happened
The fire broke out shortly after 10 p.m. inside the ride’s long, unlit tunnel, which was built from timber and painted scenery and had no sprinklers. Riders said smoke filled the track within minutes. Operators pulled some passengers clear as their cars emerged, but the seven victims were later found inside, apparently having left their cars and tried to find a way out. Firefighters had to work their way in through crowds leaving the park and reported that the hydrants on site had almost no pressure, so they relayed water from the harbor. The ride was destroyed.
The investigation
Police quickly blamed an electrical fault and ruled out arson. The coroner who held the inquest later in 1979 could not say what caused the fire. He accepted expert evidence that the ride’s wiring was an unlikely source, suggested that a cigarette or match dropped into litter was the most probable cause, and found that the park’s operators had failed in their duty of care without reaching the level of criminal negligence. The government reopened the site to tender soon afterward. A second look at the fire in the mid-1980s, during National Crime Authority work on the park’s new operators, found the original police investigation and inquest inadequate but again identified no cause.
The explanations
Suspicion settled early on Abe Saffron, a Sydney nightclub owner long described in the press and in official inquiries as an organized-crime figure, who had earlier sought control of the park. The artist Martin Sharp, who had worked on Luna Park’s restoration, spent the rest of his life collecting evidence that the fire was lit deliberately. In 2007 The Sydney Morning Herald reported remarks by a relative of Saffron, who had died the year before, implying he was behind it; she later disowned them. His son publicly called the fire an accident.
In March 2021 the Australian Broadcasting Corporation aired a three-part investigative series, Exposed: The Ghost Train Fire. Former police officers and witnesses said publicly for the first time that they had seen men they described as bikers near the ride, smelled fuel, and been pressured to change their statements, and former officers alleged that Saffron had ordered the fire and been protected by corrupt police. The series also linked the subsequent lease to senior political figures, including the late New South Wales premier Neville Wran. Saffron, who died in 2006, never faced charges over the fire.
An independent review commissioned by the ABC, by media scholar Rodney Tiffen and investigative journalist Chris Masters, backed much of the program. It found the series had shown that arson was, on the balance of probabilities, the cause, and that the police investigation had been inadequate and shaped by corruption and links to organized crime. It also found that Saffron’s relatives had been principals of the company that won the redevelopment lease. But it concluded that the program had misled viewers by implying a direct link between Saffron and Wran, finding no evidence that Wran had interfered in the lease decision.
Where it stands
The broadcast prompted New South Wales opposition leader Jodi McKay, victims’ families and a former chief magistrate to call for a new inquiry. Police formed Strike Force Sedgeman in April 2021, and the state government offered a reward of A$1 million for fresh information. The strike force delivered its report to the State Coroner, who in September 2024 suppressed it from general publication while considering an application, joined by some victims’ families, for a new inquest. The coroner has not announced a decision on a second inquest. The fire’s cause remains officially undetermined, and the allegation that it was ordered and covered up remains unproven in any court.