C5/2005M M/T OMEGA AF DONSÖ, grounding in the fairway to Porvoo 10.12.2005

OMEGA AF DONSÖ left berth no: 1 in Sköldvik 10.12.2005 at 04.10. The master and the pilot were on the bridge during the departure. The master steered the ship to the fairway by hand steering.

When the ship arrived to a waypoint with course 159°, the pilot tried to alter the course on the autopilot to 152°. The autopilot was jammed to 159°. The hand steering was activated but didn’t work.

The Officer on watch and the A.B tried to turn the rudder hard to port with the emergency steering. The rudder turned only 5° and returned to amidships. The reason for this was that the autopilot was on. The officer didn’t notice that both rudder pumps were in use because the indication light on the port rudder pump was broken. The master reduced the propeller pitch to 0. Reducing of the speed was to slow and the master changed propeller pitch to –4 astern for 20 seconds beside the Fåfänghällan edge mark. The ship started to turn fast to starboard around the edge mark. Propeller pitch was returned to 0. The master started the bow thrusters and tried to turn the bow to port without any success due to the high speed.

The ship grounded at 04.45 with a speed of 7 knots in position 60°13,0 N 025°35,4 E. The ship stopped, came of by it self and then started to drift to the south.

The reasons, which led to the accident, can be considered technical failure in the autopilot, failing in emergency steering and hurried engine manoeuvres before the grounding.

C5/2005M Report (pdf, 0.77 Mt)