WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Crew errors caused a New Zealand Navy ship to plow into a reef off the coast of Samoa, where it caught fire and sank, according to a declassified military court's preliminary findings. Friday.
The ship's crew did not realize the autopilot was engaged, believed something else had gone wrong with the ship and did not check whether the HMNZS Manawanui was under manual control as it maintained a course towards land, according to a summary of the first research report. The full report has not been made public.
All 75 people aboard the ship were safely evacuated when the boat ran aground about 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) off the coast of Upolu, Samoa, in October. The ship was one of only nine in the New Zealand Navy and was the first ship the country lost at sea since World War II.
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Officials at the time did not know the cause of the sinking, and Navy chief Admiral Garin Golding ordered a court of inquiry to investigate.
“The immediate cause of the grounding has been determined to be a series of human errors, which failed to disengage the ship's autopilot when it should have done so,” Golding told reporters in Auckland on Friday. “The muscle memory of the person in control should have leaned into that panel and checked whether the screen indicated autopilot or not.”
The crew “mistakenly believed that the inability to respond to changes in direction was the result of a malfunction in the thruster control,” he said. A number of contributing factors were identified, Golding said, including training, planning, supervision, preparedness and risk assessment.
The Court of Inquiry is expected to continue until the first quarter of next year. Golding said that since human error was identified as the cause, a separate disciplinary process will begin following the investigation.
Three crew members who were on the bridge when the disaster unfolded will likely face such a lawsuit, Golding added. They were the officer in control of the ship, an officer supervising that person and the commander of the ship. The navy chief does not want to name them.
“I want to reassure the New Zealand public that we will learn from this situation and it is up to me, as Chief of Navy, to regain your trust,” Golding said.
In the days after the sinking, New Zealand's defense minister issued a sharp rebuke to “misogynistic” online commentators who directed insults at the ship's captain because she was a woman.
The specialized diving and hydrographic vessel had been in service off New Zealand since 2019 and was inspecting the reef where it ran aground.
The sinking sparked fear in villages along the Samoan coast near the wreck over damage caused by the ship's diesel spilling into the ocean. New Zealand officials have said since the sinking that most of the fuel was burned in the fire and no environmental damage was recorded.
The current flow of fuel into the sea was a “sustained slow leak” that divers are monitoring, Golding said Friday. Specialized equipment will be transported by sea from New Zealand to Samoa this week to remove fuel and other potential contaminants from the ship.
New Zealand officials have made no public plans to remove the ship from the reef.
“This has had an impact on our reputation,” Golding said. “We will own it, fix it and learn from it.”
