„Pure routine“, says the Norwegian police and announces an official investigation of the near-disaster on the „Viking Sky“ off the stormy west coast. Reason: After all, there had been considerable danger for many people. Since it must be checked whether someone has made a criminal offense. However, there is no concrete suspicion. Nor against the captain, who had been given the green light by two pilots for the passage of the notorious Hustadvika sea area.
Damage course should be reconstructed exactly
The police are not investigating the still puzzling failure of all four aircraft aboard the ship, which is only two years old. In addition to the German manufacturer of engines, experts from the Norwegian Emergency Commission come on board. One of them is Dag Lisbeth, he commented on the Norwegian radio station NRK: „We want to know exactly what happened, how and why,“ he said. „For this we will interview the crew, look at the machines and collect data in order to reconstruct the accident course.“
This will take a while. Fast results are not expected. So the Norwegian press speculates: There is talk of broken in the waves impurities in the fuel filters and pipes. Or – and this is what the majority of the experts think at the moment – of air in the seawater cooling system of the four heavy generators, which produce the power for the drives and are actually catastrophically safe in two independently operating engine rooms.
Blessing in disguise
Actually, the near-calamity should not have happened at all, but also the ship with a little less luck on an underwater rock of this treacherous stretch of coast could run and leak. Luckily that did not happen, fortunately only a few, according to police 28 people, were injured, most of them easily.
Luckily, the ship did not crash further north of Norway. Because there is no such good rescue infrastructure, no helicopters that could have been there so quickly to get passengers off board.
Praise for the rescuers
The pilots and all other rescuers and helpers receive great praise from the people they helped. Professionally, everything is expired, it is said, disciplined and calm.
Karin Segtnan flew one of the helicopters – quite routinely, even under the difficult conditions of the weekend. „The darkness was an extra challenge,“ she says, „so we had to work extra concentrated and always take extra leeway, but the salvage went well.“
This rescue should still be in the bones of the passengers today. Only a good third of the passengers remaining on board, mostly British and Americans, is already on the way home. The rest is still waiting in Norway for the next flight home.
