Rammed ship: Skipper was drunk

2005-03-07 20:12

Copenhagen - A Croatian sailor, second-in-command on a freighter which crashed into Denmark's Great Belt bridge, was drunk at the time of the accident in which he was killed, an autopsy report showed on Monday.

The sailor was alone on the bridge when the Danish-owned M/V Karen Danielsen, sailing under a Bahamian flag and weighing 3 500 tons, on Thursday rammed into the bridge about 800m from central Denmark's Fyn island.

He had at least 1.55 grams of alcohol in his blood, police said on Monday.

Four of the 10 Croatian crew members were injured in the accident, including the captain, who suffered several broken ribs.

The accident was the worst ever since the bridge opened in 1998, leaving it heavily damaged.

The 18km long Great Belt link consists of a suspended bridge, a low bridge, a railway bridge and a railway tunnel, and functions as a link between the island of Zeeland and the island of Fyn, as well as the Jutland peninsula and mainland Europe.

The M/V Karen Danielsen, which belongs to Danish shipping company Otto Danielsen, hit the low bridge, creating a 5x5m dent in one of the bridge posts, which did not give way.

Veered off route

The ship was travelling without cargo from the Fyn island to Finland, but veered off from its route, heading north instead of east, and barrelling straight into the bridge.

The amount of alcohol in the sailor's bloodstream could in itself explain the navigation error, investigators said.

Nevertheless, this accident should never have happened, the Danish coastal authorities admitted.

The Great Belt is monitored by radar and cameras which should immediately alert the authorities when a vessel leaves the shipping lane and gets too close to the bridge.

The Danish navy's operational command (SOK) admitted on Friday that it bore "some of the responsibility" for the crash since it had not alerted the ship that it was heading straight for the bridge.

An SOK spokesperson said the mistake was due to human error.

- AFP