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Singapore

Tugboat chief officer jailed over collision at sea that drowned 2 of his crew members

SINGAPORE: In a manoeuvre that the prosecution likened to cutting across lanes in an expressway, the chief officer of a tugboat towed a poorly lit barge across a busy sea channel when he did not have the right of way, causing a collision with a tanker that drowned two men.

Indonesian national Iswahyudi, 40, was sentenced to seven months' jail on Friday (May 8) after pleading guilty to one charge of causing the deaths of 38-year-old Indonesian chief engineer Budi Setiyoko and fellow Indonesian seaman Dodi Maulana, 37.

The negligent act not amounting to culpable homicide was the result of Iswahyudi's failure to maintain a proper lookout and failing to give way to a tanker named Shun Sheng.

The accident occurred in the early hours on Feb 7 last year, in the sea about 1.95 nautical miles south-west of Pulau Pawai, a Singapore island off the southwestern coast of the mainland.

There were three vessels involved: The Shun Sheng, a 114m-long Hong Kong-registered chemical tanker carrying nitric acid to Lumut, Malaysia; Iswahyudi's tugboat, the 20.5m-long Sierra Leone-registered vessel named Koi 3; and the Koi 5, a cargo barge loaded with 5000 metric tonnes of sand that was being towed by Koi 3.

Iswahyudi was one of six crew members on the Koi 3, which was on route from Johor, Malaysia to the Tuas Aggregate Terminal in Singapore.

He was both the chief officer of the tugboat and the officer of the watch at the time of the accident, responsible for safe navigation in line with relevant regulations.

Past midnight on Feb 7, 2019, Iswahyudi took over as the officer of the watch and the tugboat made several course alterations under his guidance.

At about 4.40am, the Shun Sheng entered a lane creating a crossing situation where it would face a risk of colliding with the Koi 5 if both vessels did not alter course.

Under the regulations, the Koi 3 was the vessel that had to give way to the Shun Sheng, said deputy public prosecutors Suhas Malhotra, Lee Wei Liang and Sarah Thaker.

Despite receiving communications advising him to move the Koi 3 near an anchorage and wait, Iswahyudi did not. Instead, he altered the Koi 3's course so that the tugboat and its barge Koi 5 remained in the path of the Shun Sheng.

At 4.52am, the Shun Sheng noticed Koi 3 but not its barge and turned in an attempt to avoid colliding with Koi 3. An officer from the Vessel Traffic Information System operated by the Maritime Port Authority of Singapore warned the Shun Sheng that there was a tug and barge ahead of it, but the Shun Sheng mistakenly thought that it had avoided the collision.

The Shun Sheng collided with the Koi 5, the barge carrying 5,000 metric tonnes of sand, at 4.54am. The impact violently jerked the towline linking the barge and the Koi 3 with six Indonesian members on it, capsizing the latter and damaging all the sand on the barge.

The two victims drowned, while the four other crew members including Iswahyudi swam to the surface and were rescued by a Police Coast Guard patrol boat half an hour later.

Both the tugboat and its barge it towed suffered serious damage and could not be salvaged, later determined to be no longer seaworthy. The Shun Sheng sustained only some damage to a bow.

The Koi 3 was towed about 12km from the collision point before a rescue operation for the missing crew members began.

Divers were activated from 5.52pm on Feb 7, and the bodies were recovered only at 1.37am the next day.

After the incident, Iswahyudi admitted that he had learnt the relevant navigational rules for his tugboat's passage during training, but forgot some of it.

TWO PARTS TO HIS NEGLIGENCE

There were two parts to his negligence that resulted in the drownings of the two victims, said the prosecution.

First, Iswahyudi merely kept a look-out for vessels through plain sight, and did not use the radar on the Koi 3 to check for nearby vessels as the regulations required.

Second, he did not give way to the Shun Sheng, which had the right of way.

Mr Malhotra asked for at least eight months' jail, calling Iswahyudi's behaviour "highly aggravated".

"The accused knew that he was towing an improperly lit barge, in the middle of the night, while trying to cross the ... channel perpendicular to the flow of traffic," he said.

"Basically, what the accused had to perform was akin to cutting across an expressway, filtering across an expressway to get over to his destination."

He said the consequences of Iswahyudi's actions "were tragic" both in terms of human life and property losses.

"In the Singapore context, the potential harm is amplified by the fact that vessels have to navigate one of the busiest sea lanes in the world," said Mr Malhotra. "Five thousand metric tonnes of sand sank to the bottom of the sea."

Lawyer Derek Kang said that urgent evasive action had been taken, but the judge noted that the collision resulted not just in one death but two.

For causing death by a negligent act not amounting to culpable homicide, Iswahyudi could have been jailed for up to two years, fined, or both.

Source: CNA/ll

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