Collapse of ship's crane prompts safety review

11.45

The Maritime Safety Authority wants to know whether a potentially fatal equipment failure involving a ship's crane in Bluff yesterday is part of a worrying trend.

Waterfront workers narrowly escaped injury or death when several tonnes of equipment crashed on to a wharf from a ship's crane at South Port about 1.30pm.

The incident followed a crane collapse on the log ship Maritime Friendship at Port Chalmers in November.

MSA director Russell Kilvington told NZPA today the ship Tasman Independence had been detained, with an authority inspector going aboard shortly after yesterday's incident to carry out an investigation.

The MSA would also be looking back at other incidents occurring in recent months.

"We will start a serious piece of analysis as to what's been happening. Is there really a trend, is something going on?" Mr Kilvington said.

He did not know whether there was a worsening trend, but acknowledged workers could have been killed yesterday if the crane had fallen a different way.

"We could prosecute the company if we found this was a case of appalling maintenance, an accident waiting to happen," he said.

The ship could also be detained until action, such as making the crane inoperative, had been taken, but stopping problem ships coming to this country would be "a bit of an ask".

"We are to some extent hostages to fortune in that we can't easily stop ships coming here," Mr Kilvington said.

"We can inspect them, stop them, detain them, make life difficult for them.

"Maybe if it's a particular type of ship, or type of owners, we can get to them," he said.

"We've got to try to see if there's anything specific we can identify, and if there is what can we do to stop it."

Maritime Union general secretary Trevor Hanson told National Radio today the problems had existed for quite some years but had escalated in the past year.

"It really is flag of convenience ships that it's happening on," he said.

Such ships are registered in countries other than their country of ownership.

Mr Hanson said the union was not comfortable with the level of safety checking now done on ships, but felt the MSA was starting to perform as the union would expect it to.

"We very nearly had two or three people killed there yesterday. It was only sheer luck that they weren't killed."

Vivek Rao, general manager operations for Tasman Orient, the shipping line that operates the Tasman Independence, was confident about the company's safety standards.

"We're happy to make a comment because we don't have to run and hide. Our ships are here all the time. In this case we've had an accident," he said.

Tasman Orient operated 84 sailings a year out of this country and was the best connected operator to Asia.

"For sure we're operating safely. Most definitely so," Mr Rao said.

He had yet to see a report into yesterday's incident, but said a class surveyor had been on the ship and determined what repair work needed to be done.

- NZPA


Further reading: nzherald.co.nz/marine