Princess Ashika
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The Princess Ashika was a passenger and vehicle ferry of Tonga Shipping Corporation , between the islands of Tonga - Archipelago wrong. She capsized and sank on August 5, 2009, less than a month after starting duty in Tonga. The exact number of deaths was unclear for a few months and fluctuated between 33 and 93, but has been officially stated as 74 since February 2010.
history
The ship was named Olive Maru No. 1 with hull number 757 at the Shikoku Dockyard in Takamatsu , Japan. It sailed under the Japanese flag until 1985 and was then sold to the Patterson Brothers Shipping Company Limited , which operated it between the Fiji islands under the name Princess Ashika until 2009 .
From July 7, 2009, she finally replaced the Olovaha ferry , which had previously operated from Tonga and which suffered from machine problems, in the service of the Tonga Shipping Corporation . The planned use of the ship also raised concerns, however, as the currents in the area of the routes were considered adverse and, moreover, high swell was not uncommon, but the Princess Ashika had relatively low side walls and was also viewed as run down and inadequately maintained (these facts were the ship, as a New Zealand investigation finally showed, also significantly contributing to the downfall).
The previous owner, Patterson Brothers Shipping Company Limited , had already lost the ferry Ovalau II (941 BRT) in 2003 as a result of poor maintenance and water ingress and had a reputation for completely inadequate inspection of the ships used. The Princess Ashika was also only given a new coat of paint before being sold to the Tonga Shipping Corporation , but no major overhaul.
Downfall
On August 5, 2009, Princess Ashika was on her way from the Tongan capital Nukuʻalofa to Haʻafeva when she first sent an emergency call around 11:50 p.m. and shortly thereafter threw an EPIRB radio beacon overboard. At that time there were 128 people on board, including 27 crew members.
Since no further emergency calls were received after this and there was uncertainty about the fate of the ferry, a crisis team was formed on Tonga immediately to lead the rescue measures. Four ships took part in the subsequent search for the ferry, including patrol boats VOEA Pangai and Southern Lilly of the Tonga Defense Services (TDS), the ferry Pulupaki and the cargo ship Capitaine Tasman . During the night, around 2 a.m., the Pulupaki ferry was the first ship to reach the sinking site, which was about 46 nautical miles north of Nuku'alofa. The ship was able to rescue a total of 44 people from seven lifeboats during the night. There was wind from about 6 to 7 Beaufort from the east; the wave height was given as about two to three meters.
In the morning, a Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) P-3 Orion maritime reconnaissance aircraft flew over the disaster area. The use of the search aircraft enabled the ships to rescue ten survivors from the sea. However, the first floating corpses were also discovered. The total of 54 survivors were brought to Pangai, Tonga, on August 6th.
Since the passenger list of the Princess Ashika was lost in the sinking, there was initially complete uncertainty about the number of victims. Between August 6 and August 20, four different numbers of victims were named, ranging from 33 to 93 deaths. Only a final report by the New Zealand Transport Accident Investigation Commission (TAIC) from February 2010 named the number of 74 deaths. This figure was confirmed by a royal commission of inquiry in Tonga in late March 2010. According to it, 69 passengers and five crew members died; Among the dead were two Germans, a British, a Japanese and a French woman.
examination
The wreck of the Princess Ashika was searched for the first time by divers from New Zealand and Australia on August 10, 2009, but was not found. In order to provide certainty for the bereaved, the King of Tonga, George Tupou V , issued an order on August 13, 2009, according to which a Royal Commission of Inquiry for the Sinking of the MV Princess Ashika , the highest authority of the Kingdom to find out the cause of the accident and track down the wreck.
On August 16, the New Zealand diving workshop ship Manawnaui arrived in the disaster area and began the search. The wreck was finally discovered on August 18th. The Princess Ashika lay about eleven nautical miles southwest of the Ha'apai group of islands in about 105 meters water depth on a level keel. At the rear significant damage could be seen, presumably the ship struck with this first on the seabed on.
Subsequent investigations revealed that the ferry was in a disastrous state. Around 95 percent of the vehicle deck was rusted through and only temporarily painted over with paint. Water flowing onto the vehicle deck had been able to penetrate the decks underneath through rust holes without difficulty. In September 2009, the Tonga Minister of Transport resigned. He had previously stated to the government and the monarch that he had seen papers that the ship was classified as seaworthy. In reality, as the investigations revealed, he had never seen such papers. In addition, it became known that the ship had already been noticed during an inspection in 2008 due to severe deficiencies that had clearly called into question the seaworthiness. The former shipping company ( Patterson Brothers Shipping Company Limited ) had largely ignored this report and only superficially concealed the damage .
The sinking of the Princess Ashika was not only the worst shipping disaster in Tonga, but also developed into a tangible scandal. In addition to the rust damage, which alone could have led to a sinking, the investigative commission found 37 other blatant defects (!), For example the railings were missing, the pumps were partly not operational, the gate locks of the bow ramp and bulkheads were heavily rusted and alarm bells and on-board loudspeakers removed or not ready for use.
Reconstruction of the downfall
On the night of August 5th, in which the ship sank, at around 11.40 p.m., several breakers struck the starboard side of the forecastle and damaged the bow door there. Through holes in the hull, water quickly penetrated the ship, which collected on the vehicle deck and from there flooded the decks below, which is why the ship was quickly deeper in the water and absorbed even more water. Since the chief officer and the master were asleep, the ship's crew initially did not take any countermeasures (it later turned out that they had not received any emergency training either). So the speed was not reduced either, which led to the fact that the ship pushed itself constantly deeper into the water and thus into its own sinking due to the lower bow.
Only when the list kept increasing did the radio operator send an emergency signal (11:50 p.m.). Since the crew could not pump the water outboard due to the inadequate pump equipment, the order was issued at around 11.55 p.m. (by the chief officer, who had meanwhile been awakened) to evacuate the ship. Because of the faulty alarm equipment, however, the passengers could not be warned quickly enough. At about midnight the ship finally capsized to starboard and sank over the bow within a few minutes. The bodies of most of the 74 victims are still believed to be inside the wreck (around 50 to 60).
Aftermath
As part of the royal commission of inquiry, which published its final report on March 31, 2010, several serious allegations were made against those responsible. As a result, criminal proceedings were initiated against the master, the chief officer and those responsible for the shipping companies Tonga Shipping Corporation and Patterson Brothers Shipping Company Limited . The investigation is still ongoing.
Web links
- Sunken ferry “Princess Ashika” found , report from August 12, 2009 in the Hamburger Abendblatt