Frigate sinks, Norwegian naval officer sentenced

Frigate KNM Helge Ingstad sank after collision in 2018

The unnamed officer was sentenced to two months in prison, suspended, at a court in Norway's Hordaland region on May 15, Reuters reported.

"He is disappointed with this result," Christian Lundin, the 33-year-old officer's lawyer, told Norwegian news agency NTB.

NTB said the officer had only been on duty for eight minutes in the early morning of November 8, 2018, when the 134-meter frigate KNM Helge Ingstad collided with the Maltese-flagged tanker Sola TS, causing a large hole in the side of the naval vessel, at a port in Sture, north of the city of Bergen (administrative center of the Hordaland region).

All 137 sailors on board the frigate were evacuated before it sank. Eight suffered minor injuries.

The commander on duty was the only person charged in the incident, according to AP. Prosecutors said careless steering was the main cause of the collision.

The officer denies criminal charges but admits he did not do everything right. However, he feels it is unfair that he is solely responsible for the sinking, and believes the tanker and the maritime transport hub responsible for traffic in the area were also at fault.

Norwegian corvette sinks after collision with oil tanker

Recordings of communications between the two ships show that the Sola TS was moving slowly and repeatedly asked the Norwegian navy ship to quickly change course or else a collision would occur, but the warship refused this request for fear of getting too close to shore.

The frigate Helge Ingstad was later raised and scrapped because the cost of repairing the ship was deemed too great. The Norwegian military estimated in 2019 that the cost could be as high as $1.24 billion, according to Reuters. The tanker suffered only minor damage in the collision.

In February 2022, Twitt Navigation, the owner of the tanker, agreed to pay 235 million kroner ($22 million) to the Norwegian state to settle the consequences of the collision.

Source link: https://thanhnien.vn/khinh-ham-chim-si-quan-hai-quan-na-uy-bi-ket-an-185230516112830291.htm