A cargo ship ran aground the west coast of Scotland in 2021 after the officer on watch fell asleep following a night of drinking with his fellow crew members, reports Business Insider.
Cargo ship crashes into Scottish island
A 115-meter-long cargo ship owned by a German firm was traveling from Ireland to Scotland on July 25, 2021, when it crashed into the island of Eilean Trodday, said a new investigation from the UK’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch. The 5,344-ton ship was eventually refloated following the accident but sustained “significant damage” to the forward part of its hull, the report found. The vessel, which was carrying concrete beams on board, was forced to divert to Poland for repairs.
The recently published investigation criticized the ship’s “lack of responsibility at every level of management on board” and said the ship’s leadership had allowed alcohol abuse to be normalized. The report said a crew member learned of a death in his family the day after the BBC Marmara left port in July 2021. He subsequently invited three other crew members back to his cabin for an “informal wake,” including the second officer, a 37-year-old Ukrainian national.
The crew members drank beer and Jägermeister in the man’s cabin for about three hours, the report said. The second officer then left to take over the watch. Shortly after he took his position, two of his fellow partying crew members came to join him on the vessel’s bridge, bringing more beer that had been given to them by the ship’s master, the investigation found. The three crew members talked and played music for about an hour before two of them departed, leaving the second officer alone at around 1 a.m., the probe found.
About an hour later, the ship missed a planned course alteration, triggering an alarm that sounded 15 times before the route was effectively changed, the report said. Meanwhile, the sound of the second officer’s “loud snoring” was picked up on the voyage data recorder. Around 3:30 a.m., the vessel’s alert went off again after having detected a coming collision with the Scottish island, the report found. Soon after, the ship hit land at a speed of 11.2 knots.
Following the incident, the report said the ship’s owners and managers had taken action to improve the company’s safety-management procedures, especially in relation to the use of alcohol on board.
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Source: Business Insider
