Investigations Reveal Captain Had No Clue How Vessel Capsized

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  • Capt. Jonathan Tennant, the pilot who steered the ship out of the port at 1 a.m. on Sept. 8, 2019, recalled calm winds and good visibility.
  • He said typically there are warning signs when something is wrong.
  • But none of that happened.  All was smooth till the vessel capsized.
  • Jason Neiman, public affairs officer with the US Coast Guard, said the investigation is complex and, therefore, may take many months to complete.
  • The process of removing the stranded vessel has also been prolonged.

New testimony reveals what happened before the Golden Ray capsized off the Georgia coast, writes Natasha Chen for CNN.

A public hearing, part of the investigation into why the vessel capsized, wraps up on Tuesday. Here’s what we know so far:

Crew didn’t sense anything wrong

Capt. Jonathan Tennant, told investigators the ship started leaning in a turn and started to over-rotate to starboard. He applied what’s known as counter-rudder to reduce the rate of the turn, but it wasn’t enough. He said the accident happened within seconds.

“When I felt like I was losing control of the vessel, I reached behind me where I propped up the ship’s radio and said to Jamie on the inbound, ‘watch out, Jamie. I’m losing her,’ in which time she capsized, I dropped the radio, held onto the gyro, the ship capsized, I tried to ease the rudder, still trying to drive the ship.”

Tennant said he had no context that the ship’s rudder and propeller were already out of the water.
” I was like an airline pilot trying to drive the plane, trying to solve the problem until it flew into the ground,” he said.
He said he saw fear in the faces around him.
The other crew members were South Korean nationals. Twenty people were rescued within a few hours. Four remaining crew members stayed trapped in the engine room.
The last person aboard, Junyong Kim, was rescued about about 36 hours after the accident.

A written testimony

He gave a written testimony for the hearing this week. Kim, the first engineer on the ship, also said nothing seemed out of the ordinary until the ship turned sideways.
Smoke was visible throughout the rescue mission, indicating fires on board. Rescuers had to bore through fireproof glass and navigate passageways that had become vertical drops to rescue the people in the engine room.
” I keep thinking, why it happens to me. I think, if I have water, I could survive two days more,” Kim said in his statement.

Investigation on how cars were loaded

Investigators asked Mike Mavrinac, operations manager for ship owner Hyundai Glovis, about those changes and any issues with loading or unloading cargo.

Mavrinac said at the Port of Brunswick, “we did have some tighter space, and we added some additional cargo downstairs on the main deck, deck five.”
A National Transportation Safety Board investigator asked whether Maataki considers difference in weight between the cars that are unloaded and the new ones brought on board.
Maataki answered, “No, like I said, we receive a plan from Mexico reflecting the cargo to be discharged between the Gulf and the East Coast. And based off the space that’s available at the port of load, we just place it in a way where it’s an efficient load and discharge operation.”

Cause of the vessel capsize is not determined 

The process of removing the stranded vessel has also been prolonged.

The removal process was paused in late July, with a restart expected in early October.

Ongoing support operations have continued during the pause, including teams ensuring that any releases of oil are quickly identified and remediated to the maximum extent possible.

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Source: CNN