A FISHING trawler where a crewman was killed after being knocked overboard off Aberdeen was plagued by "hazardous working practices" with inspectors finding more than 100 failures with how the vessel was run in the years prior to the tragedy, according to investigators.
The Marine Accident Investigation Branch said the Banff-registered Aquarius was a "poorly run vessel" which had been issued with 137 deficiencies by inspectors during the nine years prior to the death of crewman, Nuertey Annang, on August 17 2015.
Many of the faults identified by inspectors from the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) had "related to safety management and were of a repetitive nature", according to a report into the fatality published today [thu] by the MAIB.
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Mr Annang, a 47-year-old from Ghana, was not wearing a lifejacket when he was struck by a steel wire warp - a type of heavy nautical rope used to manouevre sailing vessels - which had suddenly sprung loose.
Mr Annang was "[catapulted] backwards over the boat's port side into the water" at around 1.40am. The vessel, which was trawling for squid, was around two miles east of Aberdeen harbour at the time.
Lifebuoys were thrown into the water while the skipper moved the Aquarius closer to Mr Annang so that he was visible in the ship's floodlights.
However, Mr Annang was incoherent and unable to swim to a lifebuoy, and within minutes sank below the water.
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Despite an extensive sea and air search, Mr Annang's body was never recovered.
The MAIB said the crew had not been adequately trained to deal with emergencies and were also "suffering tiredness and fatigue".
The owners of the Aquarius have since made a number of safety improvements including purchasing a manoverboard recovery cage, practising emergency drills and have altered the shift pattern to 10 days on-five days off while also recording the crew's hours of work and rest.
Steve Clinch, Chief Inspector of Marine Accidents, said: “This is yet another tragic example of a crew member losing his life after going overboard from a fishing vessel. The crewman did not wear a [personal flotation device] when working on the open deck and his crewmates were not able to recover him before he was lost to the sea.
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"The MAIB investigation found that unnecessarily hazardous working practices on Aquarius were considered to be the acceptable norm by everyone, including the owners and skippers of the boat. "Aquarius had been issued with multiple safety related deficiencies by the MCA prior to the accident, however these appeared to have made little difference to how the boat was operated."
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