Report finds death of fisherman near Aberdeen was "foreseeable"
The death of a fisherman who was ``catapulted'' overboard while working on deck was ``entirely foreseeable'', investigators have found.
The death of a fisherman who was catapulted'' overboard while working on deck wasentirely foreseeable'', investigators have found.
Ghanaian crew member Annang Nuertey, 47, was working on the Aquarius fishing boat two miles from Aberdeen when he was thrown overboard and drowned in August 2015.
The Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) found he was standing inside the slack part of a wire rope known as a trawl warp which snapped tight with a loud bang, striking Annang and catapulting him backwards over the boat's port side and into the water''.
Mr Nuertey was not wearing a lifejacket but managed to stay afloat for several minutes while crew members threw life rings to him before sinking shortly before 2am on August 17, 2015. His body has never been recovered.
Investigators found a catalogue of failures on board, including that the operation Mr Nuertey was carrying out was unnecessarily hazardous and the failure of the rope stopper and subsequent loss of a crewman overboard were entirely foreseeable''.
The MAIB found the crew could not pull Mr Nuertey back on board because neither they nor the boat were adequately prepared to deal with an emergency situation, the boat did not carry a dedicated means of recovering a person from the water and the crew did not conduct man overboard drills.
Investigators also found hazardous activities had not been risk-assessed and the crew worked long hours without the minimum legal amount of rest or leave.
Fisherman are told from basic training not to stand in loops of slack rope and investigators found it difficult to understand'' why Mr Nuertey would have done so, but said the space on deck was probably the dominant factor leading to him putting himself in thedanger zone''.
Investigators said underlying factors contributing to the accident were a total lack of proactive safety management, a poor level of onboard safety culture and the crew suffering from tiredness and fatigue.
Safety equipment on board was poorly maintained and in Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) inspections during the previous nine years the boat had been identified as a poorly-run vessel'' and been issued with 137 deficiencies, 65% of which were safety critical.
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.
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.''
The MAIB has issued recommendations to the boat's owners, the staffing agency and the MCA.