Human Error Behind North Sea Collision

A collision that killed five sailors and sank the Baltic Ace car carrier on Wednesday evening was probably caused by a human error, Reuters informs citing Panagiootis Kakoliris, operations manager at Stamco Ship Management Co., Ltd. which managed the sunken ship.

The weather conditions were normal at the time of the collision, according to Dutch Defence Ministry and Greek manager. Mr. Kakoliris also excluded the possibility of a technical failure of the car carrier indicating that Baltic Ace was just five years old and that it had past the inspection in August.

The Dutch coastguard have located the wreck some 25-30 metres near the Noord Hinder shipping route.

Since the sinking lasted only 15 minutes it is assumed that the Baltic Ace was hit in the side and because of that a large amount of water entered the ship so fast.

The Corvus J owner, a German shipping company Juengerhans has offered its full cooperation into the investigation, but it did not comment or indicate a possible cause of the collision.

Due to bad weather conditions the chance of finding any of the six missing sailors are very slim, the Dutch coastguard said.

[mappress]

World Maritime News Staff, December 7, 2012