Analysing accident case
The incident occurred on a bulk carrier ship during unberthing manoeuvring. After a pilot had boarded the ship for outward passage, the visibility was restricted due to dense fog around vicinity. Therefore, the vessel was unable to depart. After a while the visibility improved slightly and pilot and Master of vessel had decided to depart. The vessel had left the pier but crossed the river more quickly than expected. At that time, the VTS (vessel traffic services) had given warning to vessel that she was out of the safe boundary (MAIB, 2014). Since the pilot gave acknowledged to VTS, the Master got into the panic and increased speed of vessel as the vessel headed through the shallow water. Thereafter, the vessel contacted with a bunker barge and grounded in shallow area. Consequently, the vessel had suffered grounding accident severely. She stayed drydock more than two weeks due to severe shell plating and bottom damages. No crew were damage at the end but there were minor environmental damage occurred since one of the heavy fuel oil tanks of vessel had suffered damage (MAIB, 2014).
At the end of incident, the necessary recommendations have been made to the vessel, operator of ship as well as port authority. The recommendation of the report has been mainly pointed out to human error, management and operational errors as well as organisational shortfalls.