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John Dow also admitted he was “horrified” at some of the evidence he heard at the Royal Commission’s inquiry into the explosions that killed 29 men last year.

During his second day giving evidence, Dow revealed he was unaware of the bypassing of safety devices and didn’t know methane levels had frequently reached above 5% at the mine.

In defence, Dow said he expected PRC’s management to report these issues to the board at the monthly management meetings.

Dow acknowledged the system at Pike River had failed because the board had been unaware of the problems facing the mine in the lead up to the explosion on November 19, 2011.

“I’m asking myself why people who were charged with that responsibility at the mine site did not raise them in [the] monthly report, did not raise them when the board was onsite and did not consider them to be sufficiently serious to tell me… or other members of the board they were going on,” Dow said.

Earlier in the day, Dow was presented with two Pike River reports from July and September 2010 which highlighted grave safety concerns at the mine.

The July report said gas samples from a mining panel were approaching outburst threshold limits and it was recommended additional drilling be conducted because gas levels could exceed acceptable levels.

The September report went on to conclude that “this topic is still of great concern.”

“There has been no outburst threshold value set for this mine,” the report said.

“Ongoing coring and data transfer with GeoGas [based in Wollongong] is a must.”

Dow said he was not aware of the comments made in the report but felt these were issues that needed to be addressed by the management team.

Dow also conceded he did not know if safety issues highlighted in a report undertaken in August 2009 were ever reported to the health, safety and environment committee.

The damning report highlighted a number of issues at the mine, including gas drainage holes producing large amounts of methane which resulted in miners having to work in an “explosive atmosphere.”

The report also requested the need for a ventilation officer.

Despite the report stating that “these are incredibly bad practices”, Dow claimed these concerns were never raised with him or anyone within his level at the organisation.

Under cross examination, QC Nicholas Davidson asked Dow if he would have acted on these safety concerns had known his miners were at risk. Dow replied he would have because he wouldn’t tolerate them.

Davidson went on to ask Dow why this sort of information about things going so dangerously wrong in this mine never got to him.

“I wish I could offer something that was meaningful… but I’m not sure that I could give you much more than speculation and I’m not ready,” he said.

“I don’t think this is the place to do that.”

Dow admitted the evidence presented throughout the inquiry had shocked him.

''There've been a lot of things that have come out that I've been horrified at.''

He admitted the safety issues that had shocked him never made it to the board.

Commissioner David Henry later turned to Dow and asked him questions about advice on how the country could prevent another Pike River disaster.

Dow said the carrying out of independent third party audits would have revealed a number of the mine’s issues a lot sooner.

“They kept the management team on their toes … which was why I was pushing for them to be done at Pike,” Dow said.