Svitzer Marine has been fined £2m ($2.4m) by a UK court after unsafe practices led to the “avoidable” death of a chief engineer aboard one of its tugs.
The Maersk company pleaded guilty at Liverpool Crown Court to “failing to operate a vessel safely and failing to provide a safe system of work”.
Ian Webb, 62, died on 27 January 2019, after falling overboard from Svitzer Marine’s tug Millgarth as it cast off from the Tranmere north jetty, in the river Mersey, in storm force conditions.
The tragic death sparked an investigation by the UK’s Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), which identified a “catalogue of the company’s failures”.
Webb is said to have released the mooring lines and attempted to return to the tug, stepping down from the jetty onto a fender, but instead fell into the river.
He was eventually rescued by Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service, but Webb died from the effects of cold water immersion.
The investigation by the MCA revealed Svitzer Marine had “not completed a risk assessment of the Tranmere jetties, despite crews raising concerns”.
Svitzer Marine is said to have “failed to instruct crews in how to operate rescue equipment, failed to ensure rescue equipment was correctly fitted and failed to ensure safety drills were being conducted”.
During the sentencing. Judge Byrne described what happened as an “avoidable incident”, adding: “This operation was inherently unsafe in any conditions but in these conditions even more so.”
After listening to the list of failings conducted by Svitzer Marine, he said: “Previous events should have put the defendant on notice.”
MCA senior investigator Mark Flavell, leading the case, said: “Svitzer Marine has been convicted of failing to discharge properly the obligations to respect workers’ safety.
“Simply put, this was a fatality that should not have happened, and the company has failed Webb and his family,” he added.
The MCA said the case highlighted the “consequences of complacency, of failure to adequately assess risks which can be prevalent in everyday tasks and of failure to undertake safety drills to ensure crews are competent in the use of life saving equipment”.
“As with most incidents of this nature, it was an avoidable tragedy, and the MCA will take action to stamp out such failures,” the MCA added.
