NZ First, a coalition Government party, posed the extraordinary question on X yesterday about what might have gone wrong.
“Is it true that the Aratere ran aground when someone put the autopilot on, went for a coffee, and then couldn’t turn the autopilot off in time when that someone came back…?”, the party posted.
Maritime New Zealand has cautioned that “conjecture” about the cause of the incident is unhelpful while an investigation continues, and KiwiRail says the “regulated number of qualified people” were on the ship’s bridge on the night of the grounding.
This is not a denial, and it is something that could be easily denied. Now generally one should be sceptical of anything Winston claims, especially about the Interislander, but maybe NZ First are on to something here.
UPDATE: They were right, reports The Post:
One mistakenly-pressed button sent the 17,816-tonne Aratere ferry off-course – but crew on the bridge couldn’t wrestle back control from autopilot before running aground was inevitable, a leaked internal safety bulletin shows.
It is understood that a key part of the investigation into the Interislander ferry’s grounding in the Marlborough Sounds on June 21 will be whether the bridge crew knew how to disengage the autopilot when using a recently-installed steering system.
So the ferry did not break down. It was crew error, yet the normal suspects howled that somehow this was the fault of the Government for not proceeding with the $3 billion+ new ferry project.
David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders.
7 comments:
Was the crew properly trained on the recently installed new steering system?
That seems like the place to start investigating.
Lucky it wasn't an aerpplane. NZ is gong to become the land of aberrant transport systems . The way Hercules can never make it anywhere overseas is embarrassing. Then there is the removal of screws on pylons.
We were given a rat trap five years ago. One of those you operate from your phone. Still haven't been able to find anyone who knows how to programme it. No manual was given with the trap. Supposed to be intuitive apparently.
I partially blame our education system which insists on neither accuracy, precision nor carefulness in work done in any setting.
Many of the public are technical or faintly so. So it is incredible how little info is winkled out and related. With a bit of thought the probable method of operation can be guessed. But it would be no secret so why not explain?. Presumably from satellite or inertia navigation the ship is programmed to pick up a course and follow it. Presumably it has to be safely near the course to head toward it and adopt. Was it triggered from a point where the course was not directly accessible? I trust all small boats and other ships in the Sounds carry very very bright flashing beacons because it seems unlikely anyone is watching for them. The propeller loss a few years ago was kept very quiet. Anyone who has read about the passenger ship Tahiti lost in the Pacifc about 1931 when the propeller flew off would be very awre of the potential danger.Fortunately the seas calmed in the many hours before the ship eventually sank.
To err is human. To really stuff things up requires a computer!
Kevan
So why didn’t the captain/crew just stop the ship dead in the water and anchor if possible?
Given the modern insistence on equity, diversity and inclusivity perhaps ‘competence’ got accidentally left out of the staffing requirements?
There's a lot to be said for Handamatic.
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