On July 28, an autopilot failure resulted in a passenger ship striking the bottom of the Sea damaging its hull.
What happened?
The passenger vessel ‘Ferry Tiiu’ was enroute to Heltermaa on the island of Hiiumaa, when the incident occurred.
The vessel reportedly struck the seabed after the autopilot onboard the ship failed. After turning on the Rukkirahu channel, it veered to starboard when on autopilot. A senior officer on watch attempted to change the ship’s course away from the grounding danger using the automatic steering wheel, but was not initially able to so.
Passengers panic:
The veering caused the passengers onboard the vessel to panic. The ship temporarily listed, jolting passengers from the blow and then regained its balance and touched the seafloor a second time.
The ship’s authorities were finally able to switch off the autopilot and brought the ship under their control by manual steering.
Hull damaged:
The vessel was routed to its homeport Rohuküla. An inspection of the hull found damage to the bow that means ferry is out of action for drydock repairs for one and a half months.
Investigation launched:
An initial investigation showed that there may have been a technical malfunction in which the ship’s control system refused to respond.
Fortunately, none of the passengers onboard the ship were injured during the incident.
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Source: Marine Electronics & Communications
