Japanese-owned ship deviated from shipping lane before Mauritius impact, data shows

Heavy prison time for those on the ship.

Oh, the selfish, foolish risks that undisciplined navigation officers will take for mobile phone network access. Hopefully other seafarers can learn from this tragedy.

It sure "looks like" the crew had too much Sake.

No human loss; corals will get restored over time. A lesson learnt for all of my marine officer fraternity and navigation captains.

If the crew had been Japanese they would have followed orders, so I'm guessing the crew was not Japanese, hence the problem

It has been widely reported that the crew were celebrating a members birthday on board, and that the ship was off course travelling close to shore so they could receive cellular/wifi coverage.

Repeated calls to the ship to alert them to the danger went unanswered.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-53819112

No human loss; corals will get restored over time

With 'tomodachis' like that, the planet needs an enema.

Why are detergents and/or emulsifiers not being used on this oil spill? Perhaps someone who knows about such things can explain.

"data from a maritime analysis firm" tells us that a ship that ran aground was off-course.... who would've guessed?

thank goodness for experts..... （＾＿－）

tomodachi3

No human loss; corals will get restored over time. A lesson learnt for all of my marine officer fraternity and navigation captains.

I can't believe at first that the ship's crew especially the captain could be so stupid.

Now I believe it. You're very convincing.

Was the Indian captain hoping to have a few days vacation in Mauritius on route to the final destination?

MarkToday  08:23 am JST

It sure "looks like" the crew had too much Sake.

Considering that there were no Japanese at all on the ship why "sake"? There may also have been many crew members unable to drink alcohol for religious reasons. Funny seeing comments from people who have zero knowledge of commercial shipping.

The Master (Captain) of Indian nationality has been arrested.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-53819112

This is going to be very, very expensive for the owners. Insurance won’t cover this, I suspect every tourist business and fisherman affected will sue for damages across decades, not to mention the government.

Why are detergents and/or emulsifiers not being used on this oil spill? Perhaps someone who knows about such things can explain.

Because it compounds the problem to the marine ecosystem rather than improving it.

Russians hacking AIS data? Must be true because someone somewhere said it.

However AIS should only be used for information and never for navigation (or this investigation/final verdict), as it is only as reliable as the person that programmed the vessels unit for that voyage and the instruments it is reading from.

Russians hacking AIS data? Must be true because someone somewhere said it.

What makes you think it was the Russians? The ship left china on it's way to Brazil.

The china-nese have already used faked GPS signals to evade detection & invade Gelapagos waters with their illegal fishing fleets.

Two of the ship's officers have since been arrested on charges of endangering safe navigation.

The above does not go well with:

It was not immediately clear why the ship appeared to deviate from its course.

No one should be arrested with so much doubt. Was there an emergency? An error by someone beside them? Broken or mis-calibrated equipment?

Japanese-owned ship deviated from shipping lane before Mauritius impact

Why not change the headlines to: "Ship that left China with Indian captain deviated from shipping lane before Mauritius impact" ?

@inspectorgadget If that’s the case, that they were doing that just to celebrate someone’s birthday, I hope that these guys are prosecuted big-time. Because of their own selfish desires, a pacific island nation now has their environment seriously polluted. Seriously, just for one person‘s birthday, and simply to get Wi-Fi? That’s reprehensible.

Because of their own selfish desires, a pacific island nation now has their environment seriously polluted.

You need to go back to your geography books. Mauritius is in the Indian Ocean, not Pacific.

Must've been a knockout birthday party...how far off course? Maybe we need these "captains'" wives to drive...

Was the merchant ship being operated automatically or manually when it suddenly deviated from the usual shipping lane 90 degrees, heading toward the island and the coal reef?  Was there negligence of duty on the part of the crew or was there some kind of conspiracy involved in the whole event?

The Mauritius coast guard had repeatedly tried to reach the ship to warn it that its course was dangerous but received no reply, Reuters reported this week.

NHK reported just a few minutes ago that the crew were having a birthday party, letting the ship navigate automatically. That means there was no one in the steering house to answer, or give heed to,  a warning call from the Mauritius coast guard.

Or, maybe, a novice crew member took notice of the warning and tinkered with the computer, inputting the program for the worse.

Indian crew. Party on board. Selfies and Social Media are important to Indians, so the lure of a free WiFi (as current rumours suggest) would be the motivation. If anyone else has a better explanation - then please share it.