A captain and pilot have pleaded guilty to causing a serious head-on collision between a car carrier and a ro-ro in the River Humber, UK, in December 2015.
Gehan Sirimanne, the now-retired pilot, and Ruslan Uromov, a former master, received a four-month suspended jail sentence at Hull Crown Court.
Uromov was charged with conduct endangering ships, structures or individuals, while Sirimanne was charged with misconduct by pilot endangering ship.
The jail terms were suspended for 18 months. Sirimanne was ordered to pay £45,000 ($59,000), and Uromov £750.
The 2,000-ceu City of Rotterdam (built 2011), managed by Fairmont Shipping, collided with DFDS’ 10,200-dwt ro-ro Primula Seaways (built 2004) at the entrance to the Humber River on 3 December 2015.
The UK Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) later found the incident was partly caused by the pilot being disorientated by the windows of the car carrier’s innovative semi-circular bridge.
The probe said City of Rotterdam had been set to the northern side of the navigable channel and into the path of the inbound ferry, but this had not been corrected because the pilot on board had “become disoriented after looking through an off-axis window on the semi-circular shaped bridge.”
MAIB said the vessel was of an unconventional design and the pilot’s confusion was due to ‘relative motion illusion’, which caused him to think the ship was travelling in the direction in which he was looking.
In passing sentence, Judge HHJ Richardson said the incident represented the destruction of their professional reputation as professional mariners.
Michael Groark, surveyor in charge at the Maritime & Coastguard Agency’s Hull office said: "This shows that the rules are there for a reason. It was a serious collision which could have resulted in serious injury.
"Both of these men ignored several alerts warning them they were on the wrong track and put not only themselves but others using the channel correctly, at risk."
