A CARGO ship ran aground on rocks near Land’s End because its chief officer caught his trousers on a lever, fell over and was knocked unconscious, a report said yesterday.
The officer, who was alone on watch, did not regain consciousness until the 1,840- tonne RMS Mülheim was nearing the Cornish coast, according to the preliminary report by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB).
The rest of the ship’s six-man Polish crew were asleep at the time of the accident. They were airlifted to safety after she became wedged on rocks near Sennen in March.
Up to half her 2,200-tonne cargo of shredded plastic waste was washed into the sea. A clean-up operation was mounted to remove pollutants from the vessel and plastic from nearby beaches.
The Antigua and Barbados-registered ship, which was sailing from Cork to Lübeck, Germany, was so badly damaged that she could not be refloated. The MAIB Safety Digest concludes: “Here is yet another grounding and subsequent total loss of a ship because the officer in charge of the watch became incapacitated while alone on the bridge, with the watch alarm switched off. . . the presence of a lookout on the bridge would have prevented the grounding and loss of this ship.”
Advertisement
A Department for Transport spokeswoman said a full investigation by the MAIB was continuing into the accident.