BMI: Princess captain at fault

MANILA, Philippines – A member of the Board of Marine Inquiry (BMI) disclosed yesterday that based on initial findings, the captain of the M/V Princess of the Stars may have committed an error in judgment that caused the passenger ship to capsize at the height of a typhoon last June 21.

Captain Demetrio Ferrer, BMI vice chairman and spokesman, told reporters that Captain Florencio Marimon Sr., skipper of the ill-fated ship, failed to act and apparently caused the tragedy that killed more than 200 people and left about 600 still missing.

Marimon, a master mariner and considered one of the best skippers of Sulpicio Lines Inc. (SLI), allegedly failed to save the lives of his crew, passengers as well as the ship. Marimon is reported to be one of the missing.

“The vessel had reached the so-called position where the master had to take his extraordinary diligence and must undertake his overriding authority, as we call it, to take evasive action to save the vessel and the lives (of the crew and passengers on board). But, in a way, he failed,” Ferrer said.

Ferrer said the ship passed through the eye of typhoon “Frank” and capsized due to strong winds and waves off Sibuyan Island in Romblon.

“What vessel could sustain that kind of weather condition, 40 feet of sea (waves) and about 150 (kilometers per hour) wind force? The very root cause (was that) there was an error in judgment, as what we have said, on the part of the master. That is the primary root cause and the others are supposed to be contributory factors of negligence and complacency,” he added.

The six-man board is also still studying the possibility that the ship owner SLI committed a contributory error. “We still have to find out and decide.”

The BMI official, however, said that this is only their initial findings and the report would still have to be finalized before it is submitted to Vice Admiral Wilfredo Tamayo, commandant of the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG).

Ferrer said that they are also checking on the load of the vessel during stormy weather.

“We are looking at the stability of the vessel, the maximum angle of inclination that a vessel could sustain, if sea water would enter the ship.”

When asked if the there was sufficient ballast or if there was enough water to counterbalance the weight of the ship, Ferrer said, “There is existing ballast and I can say that it did not thoroughly affect the stability of the vessel.” 

He said the ship was able to run smoothly from the time it left the Port of Manila on June 20 at 8 p.m. until the maritime incident that occurred just before 12 noon the next day.

As for the cargo lashings, Ferrer said that there is no certainty that some of the cargo might have gotten loose from their lashings, considering the weather condition prevailing at the time.

“Nobody can prove that but generally the gravity or the weight of the cargo will find its way down,” he said.

The BMI canceled what was supposed to have been its last hearing before finalizing their report on the maritime tragedy.

They were supposed to hear the expert opinion of engineer Sam Lim, president of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, but at the last minute decided not to proceed with the hearing.

Lim was already at the BMI office before 10 a.m., but BMI chairman Rear Admiral Ramon Liwag said that they could still seek Lim’s opinion though not in open court, but in the form of a document or discussions in executive session.

Last Tuesday, the SLI submitted a three-page motion entitled “Very respectful omnibus motion ex-abundanti cautela without prejudice to the issue of jurisdiction” before the BMI.

“We would want the board to specify and clarify why did the endosulfan issue trigger the reopening of the investigation. I believe that we are entitled to know,” said SLI lead legal counsel Arthur Lim.

“Our prayer to the board is that the endosulfan (pesticide) did not cause the capsizing of the ship and based on the parameters laid out by the board, the endosulfan is outside the BMI’s jurisdiction,” he added.

Rear Admiral Liwag said they are still consulting with their lawyers since, as SLI pointed out, there is a pending civil case filed by SLI against Del Monte Philippines Inc., the consignee of the toxic cargo. “We are still studying the matter because we might have a problem on sub judice.”

Meanwhile, the 15,000-strong United Filipino Seafarers (UFS) urged the BMI to release the findings on the real cause of the Princess of the Stars tragedy.

“We hope that the BMI should have considered all the technical facts and made it as their foremost basis before officially releasing the results of their investigation to the public,” said UFS president Nelson Ramirez in a statement.

Ramirez said the public deserves to know the truth behind the sinking and make all guilty parties answerable under the law so that future maritime disasters could be avoided.

Ramirez said the BMI should look into the last order of the skipper of the Princess of the Stars to his crew to pump water into the ship’s ballast tanks when the vessel strayed into the path of typhoon Frank.

Ramirez stressed that any attempt to ballast a moving ship right in the middle of a storm would cause a free-surface effect and jeopardize the stability of the ship.

The cargo lashings should also be carefully looked at, while improper stowage plan would have catastrophic effect on a vessel sailing in bad weather, Ramirez said.

“This is the perfect opportunity for the BMI to prove its true mettle because if they fail to live up to public expectations, they will actually chart the demise of safety in the domestic shipping industry,” he said. - With Nestor Etolle