The Board of Inquiry (BoI), commissioned to investigate the circumstances that led to the MV Tradewind Passion colliding with the Demerara Harbour Bridge (DHB), has recommended that the River Pilot’s licence be suspended for 24 months.
Since the October 8 incident, the pilot’s licence had been suspended and he was under active surveillance by the Maritime Adminis-tration Department (MARAD). MARAD had said that the likelihood of a permanent suspension of the River Pilot’s licence was being strongly considered.
The Pilot has been identified as Kenneth Cort and he has been in the business for over two decades now.
Guyana has about six river pilots who work with vessels traversing the channel. Those river pilots do not include the 15 who are attached to MARAD. The six pilots are represented by an association which would be contacted by the vessels to navigate them through the channels. Government had said that these pilots are experienced and have extensive knowledge of the channels and it is one of the reasons why the government is baffled as to how an incident of this magnitude could have occurred.
On October 8, hours, after the MV Tradewind Passion crashed into the bridge damaging four spans, Minister of Public Works Juan Edghill, announced that a Board of Inquiry had been established. The members are Captain Joseph Lewis who is a marine officer and surveyor of ships, MARAD Legal Director Thandi McAllister, Youlanda Hughes, Inspector Ross from the Marine Wing of the GPF, Lieutenant Colonel David Shamshudeen from the Coast Guard, Chief Trans-port and Planning Officer Patrick Thompson and a Board Member of the Guyana National Shipping Corporation, Dimitri Ali.
The Board was given seven days to complete its work and submitted its final report to Edghill yesterday.
In a statement, the Ministry said that Captain Lewis who led the team and officially delivered the report, assured the Minister that every check was made. Additionally, he said that interviews were conducted to gather information to compile the report.
“Being a marine surveyor that deals with international ships, I have very high standards and with this report here I am very impressed, it has met my standard and we hope it will also meet your standard, Minister,” Lewis was quoted as saying.
The investigation into the incident commenced on Monday last and it is unclear whether the Minis-try will release the report.
Stabroek News understands that the investigation found that the captain of the MV Tradewind Passion powered off the vessel at the time of navigation and that ceased communication between him and the pilot.
In a brief comment to Stabroek News, Edghill yesterday said that the Board of Inquiry found that all of the navigational aids and everything to facilitate passage of the vessel through the Deme-rara Harbour Bridge were fully functional. He noted that the four other vessels that transited prior to Tradewind Passion had no complaints.
“The weather condition was not adverse, the only challenges we had was what took place on the vessel. So the report has clearly established that the vessel and those who operated it are the ones who are culpable for what transpired.
“Initially I can say that the Board of Inquiry recommended that the pilot be suspended for 24 months and before being allowed to travel [navigate another vessel] has to be recertified and all of the rest of it. This is in addition to the company [that owns the vessel] having to stand the cost of the full repairs,” Edghill said.
Noting the unusual circumstances that led to the accident, Cort was taken into custody by MARAD and handed over to the police for drug and alcohol testing. The results of those tests returned negative and according to MARAD, the vessel was fully manned at the time of the crash.
The accident occurred just about 2 am on Satur-day last as the Tradewind Passion, a Panamanian registered vessel, was navigating the channel to offload fuel at GuyOil’s Providence Terminal. It crashed into the bridge damaging four spans. The accident has also left a DHB Company Ship Supervisor, Andy Duke seriously injured after he was forced to jump from a tower to get to safety.
Duke said that the vessel was not proceeding south and it was outside of the line of the channel. He said that a call was made to the captain to realign the vessel in the channel but that was not done. Duke noted that it is not the first time that the vessel was traversing the channel during retraction and that he is familiar with the voice and name of the captain. He reiterated that it was not the captain responding to the calls from the DHB at the time of the incident.
The vessel shifted the bridge about 45 degrees out of alignment while damaging spans 8,9,10 and 11. The damage has been labelled as extraordinary and requires a lot of technical work to restore the bridge to its previous state.
The bridge was only reopened to vehicular traffic late Monday night and since then there have been weight limitations as repair works are still ongoing.
$1 billion and counting
Yesterday, Edghill told Stabroek News the repair bill thus far is “$1 billion and counting.”
“When we checked for the fabrication of one pontoon it was over $125 million [and that is just] one pontoon. Our estimate at this time is about $1 billion and we still have some work to do. So it is $1 billion and counting,” he noted.
The scope of repair works on the 42-year-old bridge involves the replacement of two pontoons that were damaged as a result of the impact. Additionally, a number of supporting structures had to be completely replaced.
The repair works were undertaken by both the government and private sector bodies.
General Manager of the DHB Wayne Watson told Stabroek News that the bridge has returned to normalcy and is now accommodating trucks 18 tonnes and under at all times. However, he said that truck drivers are urged to drive within the speed limit since works are still ongoing.
“We have two major pieces of work but one is more critical than the other which is replacing the pontoon chairs that support the acceptor at span 8. So tomorrow the guys will continue working on that. That literally entails sinking the pontoon, returning the chair to its original position and then removing the water so it can raise up back to keep the chair in its position where it does normally be.
“We installed a new pontoon yesterday. We were able to access a pontoon so we took out the damaged one and installed a new one simultaneously while traffic was flowing so persons were driving at the top and they were not conscious that we were doing work at the bottom,” Watson said.
He said that crews are still working around the clock to have the repairs completed.
“The electrical work to the winch was completed this morning. We have another pontoon to take out, that was damaged also and we have another support to the acceptor span that was out of line but those are going to do simultaneously with flow of traffic and retraction. We will not stop the flow of traffic or retraction. So from 12 tonight [Friday] 18 tonnes and under will be able to traverse,” he said.
The MV Tradewind Passion is still docked in Georgetown.
