Four and a half years after the Norwegian Navy’s frigate “Helga Insta” sank, the local court issued a verdict on those responsible.
According to a report by the Norwegian National Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) on May 15, local time, the Hordaland District Court in Norway made a verdict on Monday: the 33-year-old male officer who was on duty on the “Insta” at the time was sentenced to 60 days of probation.
The defendant’s defender, Christian Lundin, said he was “disappointed” with the verdict and believed it was “unfair” to attribute the accident to the client alone, but he has not yet decided whether to appeal.
The construction cost of Norway’s five “Nansen”-class frigates was NOK 21 billion, with an average cost of more than NOK 4 billion per ship, or about HK$2.92 billion.
The on-duty officer sank a 2.9 billion “Aegis” ship. After four and a half years of investigation, he was only sentenced to 60 days of probation, which he said was “unfair.”
A large hole appeared after the frigate “Helga Insta” collided with the tanker.
The event is like this. On November 8, 2018, the Norwegian Navy’s “Nansen” class “Aegis” guided missile frigate No. 3, which had just concluded the NATO “Trident Junction”-2018 exercise, and the F-313 “Insta” were returning to Bel In the waters near the northern part of the country, it collided with the Maltese oil tanker “Soratis” full of crude oil and was damaged. It lost control and ran aground. Seven crew members were injured. Then all the crew members abandoned the ship and carried out a series of rescue efforts. Afterwards, the “Instar” sank on November 13.
The frigate “Instar” not long after the collision, the whole ship is still powered off.
A light “Aegis” ship with a displacement of 50 million tons collided with a tanker with a displacement of 110,000 tons, and that was the result.
During the evacuation of the “Insta” abandoned ship, no one lowered the Norwegian navy flag, and it was still hanging above the water, which is quite funny.
In March 2019, the ship was salvaged. In June of that year, the Norwegian Navy assessed that repairing the ship was “uneconomical” and decided to scrap it for dismantling. This is also the first “Aegis” warship in the world to be scrapped due to an accident.
A crane barge is at the scene of the sinking of the frigate “Insta”, and the sunken “Insta” is underwater.
At the end of November 2018, the Norwegian Royal Commission of Inquiry released a preliminary investigation report, which determined that the “Insta” was primarily responsible for the collision. A series of errors, such as land or fixed installations, failed to change course in time after a series of radio communications, and finally led to a collision accident. In May 2022, the prosecution submitted related charges against the duty officer, and in January this year, the case opened in the Hordaland District Court.
In 2021, the frigate “Instar” being dismantled.
The prosecution believes that the “Instar” watch officer must be responsible for the collision, and the defendant could and should have taken different measures to avoid the collision, and requested a 120-day suspended sentence for this person.
However, the duty officer himself has always denied his guilt, saying that he had only received limited training at the time of the incident, and that he should not have been allowed to perform navigational duty as a duty officer. The defendant’s fault was only a “small part” of the responsibility for the accident. freed.
The collision “never would have happened” if an “experienced” watch officer had been on the bridge that night, former training instructor Katolas Moussen told NRK.
The court held that the duty officer did not fully monitor the navigational radar information at that time, nor did he use electronic charts or telescopes and other auxiliary tools, resulting in insufficient observation. He also misjudged that the oil tanker “Soratis” did not adjust and slow down, and the frigate maneuvered. It was not timely, clear, and insufficient. The above violated several maritime navigation rules. It was originally planned to use similar cases in history to give a suspended sentence of 6 months. To a certain extent, it violated the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights, so it was given relevant attention in sentencing. The final decision was to sentence the defendant to probation for 60 days.
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