There are approximately 32,000 pilotages in Sweden each year. Despite the scale, never has a pilot and a master of a ship been prosecuted or sentenced as they did today.
According to the rules of the sea, both parties have a duty to look out and to avoid collision - but what good does it do if neither of them saw the other?
- The court has put the emphasis on the master's responsibility for the lookout and on the fact that the cargo ship was catching up. It is believed to outweigh maritime rule 9, which states that vessels shorter than 20 meters should not obstruct cargo vessels in narrow passages. But I think it matters a little which rule applied, because neither party saw the other, says Fredrik Olindersson.
He is not exactly surprised by the verdict and is relatively certain that the case will reach as far as the Supreme Court, HD.
- The crimes are classified as crimes of negligence. As I see it, the accident was preceded by a chain of unfortunate circumstances and shortcomings. That makes the legal assessment of everyone's negligence and responsibility difficult, especially when it comes to the boundary between the roles of the commander and the pilot, he believes.
Niklas da Silva, senior advisor at Swedish Shipping, believes that the criminal justice process is of interest, but even more important is the investigation that the National Accident Commission is conducting.
- From an industry perspective, it is more interesting if there are processes or regulations that should be changed so that this type of accident cannot happen. Of course, everyone in the industry is already doing everything they can to ensure that similar events do not occur, says Niklas da Silva.
The boats approached each other slowly, over a long period of time. The ship traveled at 20 kilometers per hour, the leisure boat at 13 kilometers per hour. It is clear that the recreational boat could at least occasionally be seen on the ship's radar and that the driver of the recreational boat had no idea that the cargo ship was approaching.
- For some reason, the pilot, who was driving at the time, somehow did not identify the radar echo as a threat. He may have misinterpreted the situation. The pilot is responsible for navigation and maneuvering the vessel during pilotage. The master of the cargo ship is responsible for ensuring that the ship's bridge is properly manned. That includes the lookout. The recreational boat's driver is in turn responsible for how it acts, states Fredrik Olindersson.
Both he and Niklas da Silva agree that the most immediate consequence of the accident – not the judgment itself – is that pilots and masters will be considerably more careful and formal about the division of roles on ships' docks during future pilotages:
- I doubt the value of sentencing the individuals criminally with suspended sentences and fines. It will not by itself prevent future accidents; it is the accident itself and the subsequent review of working methods that creates change, says Fredrik Olindersson.
Niklas da Silva, senior advisor at Swedish Shipping, agrees:
- We work with long-term and proactive work. What a court decides on the issue of debt is not always the most relevant to us. We will focus on the Accident Commission's report and its safety recommendations and not take a position on the issue of liability, he says.
The Pilots Association's chairman Ronny Löf writes to DN that they are taken seriously:
- Our thoughts go out to the two people who lost their lives in the accident at Tjörn, to their relatives and to those who survived. No inferences of liability can lessen their loss.
The Pilots Association is of the opinion that the sequence of events could have happened with any of Sweden's pilots, the pilot in question was not the cause.
- Limited visibility from the bridge, deficiencies in equipment or insufficient lookout are examples of risks that a pilot may have to deal with. The pilot's competence is important, but it must never replace functioning safety routines on board, writes Ronny Löf further.
The Pilots' Association is now calling on the Swedish Maritime Administration and the Swedish Transport Agency to jointly review how deficiencies on ships are reported, shared between countries and followed up for future pilotages.
