Preliminary ATSB report into Australian expedition cruise ship Coral Adventure released, navigational error blamed for days-long stranding
A luxury Australian cruise ship carrying more than 120 people became stranded on a reef due to a serious navigational error, a preliminary investigation by the transport safety watchdog has found.
The Australian expedition ship Coral Adventure crashed into a shallow reef while approaching Dregerhafen, 100 km east of Lae, Papua New Guinea.
The plane, carrying 80 passengers and 44 crew members during a 12-night cruise off the northeast coast of Papua New Guinea, collided with a reef after 5am on December 27 last year.
The passengers were trapped on the boat for three days before disembarking.
According to the preliminary report prepared by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB), the incident occurred as a result of the first officer making steering and speed changes.
The first officer had tried to adjust the ship’s course to make a smoother turn.
However, the navigation system froze to perform a safety check, causing the ship to miss its scheduled return.
Rushing to correct the mistake, the mate switched to manual steering and increased engine power, but the ship gained too much speed and could not turn to starboard in time.
The ship had now traveled 2.5 miles faster than planned and was 200 yards west of its course.
The first mate then returned to manual control, but by then the ship had covered a greater distance than planned.
“At this point, in dark conditions and without navigational aids or lights on land, the first mate reported that he was unable to visually identify the surrounding topography,” ATSB chief commissioner Angus Mitchell said.
“This is a very narrow waterway and the margin for error is quite small, especially in waterways like this,” Mr Mitchell said.
The ship departed for a reef 160 meters east of its planned route at 5:25 a.m., but the ship’s bottom had suffered structural damage and became stuck.
After three days on the reef, all passengers were disembarked and brought to shore for the return to Cairns.
The incident is being investigated by the ATSB, which claims navigation delays, speed changes and confusion in the dark led to the grounding.
“We will be reviewing transition planning and general navigational procedures across the entire fleet that this operator has, and we will also be looking at emergency response on the day of the grounding,” Mitchell said.
