Crew members have described the final moments onboard a Hyundai Glovis car carrier before it dramatically capsized at the US port of Brunswick in September last year.
At a US Coast Guard public hearing, the 7,700-ceu Golden Ray (built 2017) master Jonathan Tennant described the moments leading up to the vessel's capsize.
"Everything was just as normal as it could be, until it capsized," he told the hearing, according to CNN.
The ship, crewed by 24 and with 4,000 new cars onboard, started to turn dramatically to starboard and Tennant said he could not correct the movement.
"When I felt like I was losing control of the vessel, I reached behind me where I propped up the ship's radio and said to Jamie on the inbound, 'watch out, Jamie," Tennant told the hearing.
"I'm losing her,' in which time she capsized, I dropped the radio, held onto the gyro, the ship capsized, I tried to ease the rudder, still trying to drive the ship."
He described the situation as similar to an "airline pilot trying to drive the plane, trying to solve the problem until it flew into the ground".
The grounding was followed by a fire.
US Coast Guard captain John Reed said internal temperatures had reached 150 degrees in some passageways turning the ship into a "death trap".
It was to be 36 hours before all the crew members were rescued from the vessel. First engineer Junhong Kim was the last person to be rescued from the ship. He was in the flooded engine room with three others when the incident happened.
He said the crew in the engine room stayed in the water to keep cool.
"I keep thinking, why it happens to me. I think, if I have water, I could survive two days more," Kim said in a written statement to the hearing.
Rescuers had to drill through fireproof glass and navigate passageways to rescue the four men from the engine room.
The hearing also examined the way the cars were loaded onto the ship. The loading plan had been changed with more cars loaded on the lower deck than originally planned. The vessel’s scheduled port calls had been altered because of Hurricane Dorian.
The wreck removal of the vessel has been suspended because of problems related to the coronavirus pandemic. The vessel is insured with the North P&I Club.
