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JANUARY 5, 2022 ANALYSIS

Learning the lessons –

the loss of the
Norwegian frigate
Helge Ingstad

In 2021 the Accident Investigation Board

– Norway (AIBN) published a detailed
report covering the loss of HNoMS Helge
Ingstad a!er she collided with an oil
tanker in November 2018. There is much
to be learned from this event that is
applicable to the RN and global navies.
In this in-depth, although far from
exhaustive, article we describe the
incident and look at some of the key
lessons.

The accident in summary

On 8th November 2018, the frigate Helge
Ingstad (HING) was heading south down
Hjeltefjord returning to her home base
at Haakonsvern, near Bergen a!er
participation in NATO exercise Trident
Juncture. Just a!er 0400, HING collided
with the bow of the Sola TS, a fully laden
112,939 DWT tanker, heading north
having just departed from Sture oil
terminal. The bulbous anchor hawse
pipe on the tanker’s starboard bow
ripped a large gash down the a!
starboard side of the frigate. As HING
heeled slightly under the impact, the
tear in the side was extended su"ciently
below the waterline to cause signi#cant
$ooding.

Fortunately, there were no fatalities but

HING su%ered a brief total electrical
failure a!er the impact. Power was
partially restored but confusion and
internal communication problems
limited damage the control e%ort.
Having lost steering and engine control,
the ship ran aground on rocks about 10
minutes a!er the collision. Believing the
$ooding made capsize a likely, the crew
abandoned ship in an orderly manner,
assisted by tugs and rescue cra!. Despite
e%orts to pin the ship on the rocks by
tugs and with steel hawsers, HING
progressively $ooded sinking until
almost entirely submerged.

Some months later, a!er complex

clearance diving operations to remove
fuel and live weapons and then secure
chains beneath the wreck, HNIG was
raised o% the sea bed using a heavy li!
crane barge. The wreck was eventually
placed on a semi-submersible
transportation barge and taken to
Haakonsvern for further investigations
and to remove sensitive material.
Temporary patches were applied to the
damaged shell plating and the ship was
re$oated. Unsurprisingly the navy
declared the ship a total loss and in Jan
2021 handed her over to be scrapped, a
process that is ongoing at the time of
writing.

The cost of the accident is estimated at

$80m for the salvage, operation, not to
mention enormous reputational damage.
Building a direct replacement for a ship
that ceased production a decade ago is
estimated at $1.4 billion and not
considered viable. The Norwegian Navy
was already overstretched, primarily
occupied with monitoring its aggressive
neighbour, lost 20% of its frigate force.

Around the world and in Norway

particularly, there was considerable
shock that this could happen, especially
involving a warship operating close to
home and in waters monitored by a
tra"c management system. Some hasty
judgements were made by those
speculating about the event, with some
suggesting the accident “must have been
the fault of the tanker crew as a highly
trained naval personnel on board a modern
warship with sophisticated sensors would be
unlikely to make such a mistake.” Some
also assumed the subsequent sinking
was because: “the ship must have been
poorly constructed by the Spanish
shipbuilder Navantia as warships are
speci!cally designed to survive damage and
"ooded compartments”. The investigation
has proved neither of these assumptions
to be the case.

Map showing the area of the accident on the west

coast of Norway (via Google) and timeline of the
collision and grounding (via AIBN).

Standing into danger

The root causes of the accident were
entirely human error, primarily on the
bridge of the warship. It was a clear and
calm night and there were no technical
problems that contributed to the initial
collision.

HING was proceeding down the Fjord at

a brisk 17–18 knots and was not
transmitting her name and position on
AIS. The Fedje Vessel Tra"c Service
(VTS) which managed shipping
movements in the area was noti#ed of
the frigate’s arrival an hour and 23
minutes before the collision but the
operator failed to plot her on the
tracking system. Sola TS told the VTS
when she le! the oil terminal but the
VTS operator had forgotten about HING
and initially did nothing. The tanker was
showing standard navigation lights but
also had powerful $oodlights
illuminated to assist crew at work on the
deck as was their standard practice.

The Norwegian Navy (Sjøforsvaret) was

short of quali#ed navigation o"cers and
the o"cer of the watch (OOW) in charge
of navigating the ship was young and
relatively inexperienced. The frigate had
a crew of 137 on board, the majority
were asleep at the time of the incident. 7
personnel were standing on watch on
the bridge, including the OOW, an o"cer
and a rating under training and 4 other
ratings.

The OOW and trainee o"cer discussed

the $oodlights but believed they were
ashore and stationary. Con#rmation bias
and lack of experience led the OOW to
keep thinking this was the case until too
late. Inexplicably there was only brief
use of navigational radar and AIS to
check the situation and they interpreted
the tanker as a stationary object
alongside at the terminal. There was a
reliance on visual cues for too long and
ironically the accident would probably
have never happened if the visibility had
been poor.

The pilot on the tanker saw HING in the

distance and called VTS asking if they
knew what this unknown vessel was.
VTS was initially unable to help, having
forgotten about HING. The tanker tried
to signal the frigate by $ashing lamp but
it was not seen, probably obscured by
the deck lights. The VTS operator then
remembered HING and immediately
informed the pilot on the tanker of her
presence. The pilot called the frigate by
VHF radio requesting an immediate turn
to starboard. The Pilot had not clearly
identi#ed which ship was calling and the
OOW thought he was speaking to
another vessel approaching on their port
side. Despite now being much closer, he
still thought the lights were stationary
and on the shore and there was no space
to make a turn to starboard. VTS, which
held both vessels clearly on radar, did
not intervene to tell HING to stop,
assuming the two ships, now in contact,
would resolve the issue.

With the ships just 500m distance apart,

the tanker stopped engines and radioed
HING to take urgent avoiding action. At
this point, the OOW #nally realised the
lights were a moving vessel and ordered
a turn to port followed by rudder
amidships, attempting to steer around
the tanker. Unfortunately, the turn was
made just a few seconds too late and a
collision was unavoidable. Contact
between the ship lasted 5 seconds and
tore a 46m gash down the side, severing
cables, pipes, control panels,
switchboards and watertight bulkheads
and doors.

Anatomy of an accident…

Losing the ship

In the moments a!er the impact there
was considerable confusion on the
bridge. The team was trying at work out
what exactly had happened and did not
know how seriously the ship had been
damaged or whether the crew had
su%ered fatalities and injuries. Stress
and fear were factors in a situation that
was beyond what they had trained for.
There was a 10 second total power
failure and it took several minutes for
many systems to be manually restarted.

The Integrated Platform Management

System (IMPS) which is the key
technology used to control and monitor
lean-manned modern vessels showed
564 alarms but this mass of information
did not indicate the priorities for action.
At the same time, they lost steering and
engine control on the bridge and were
unable to communicate with the
Machinery Control Room (MCR) which
also acted as HQ1 damage control centre.

Down below the sleeping crew were

suddenly jolted awake but most had no
idea what had happened. The junior
rates mess on 3 deck was $ooded and
some o"cers were trapped in cabins in 2
deck, fortunately without serious injury
but needing assistance to escape. The CO
was asleep in his cabin behind the bridge
and was thrown from his bunk by the
impact. Dazed, he went quickly to the
ops room and then to the bridge. The
frigate was now heading towards the
shore are about 5 knots with no control
possible from the bridge. The steering
gear was in full working order and the
sailor on watch was contacted by sound-
powered telephone but did not
understand what was said. Realising they
would soon run aground, the OOW called
“full astern”, over the main broadcast.
This was not heard by the propulsion
controller or those in the a! main engine
room. The OOW ordered the anchor be
dropped but it was too late and #nally
“brace, brace, brace” was called before the
ship hit the rocky shore almost directly
bows-on at 0411, smashing the bow-
mounted sonar dome.

Watch changes had just taken place in

the MCR/HQ1 just before the accident
and some of the relieved team were still
around. They knew something serious
had happened, possibly an engine or
electrical switchboard explosion but
observing damage and $ooding, then
thought they had run aground.
Personnel were sent to inspect the lower
compartments and eventually con#rmed
$ooding in three separate watertight
compartments – the a!er generator
room, junior rates mess and storerooms.
Some attempts at shoring and Damage
Control were made in the generator
room but the hole was large, obscured by
pipes and live electrical cables. The loss
of saltwater main pressure reduced the
e%ectiveness of the already inadequate
bilge pump system which failed to
remove any water from the ship. Many
hatches and doors that would maintain
watertight integrity were le! open,
essentially to facilitate movement of
personnel and portable pumps which
proved ine%ective.

The electronic tool used to calculate the

stability of the ship (which the
Norwegian Navy had previously agreed
was not fully #t for purpose) indicated
that if a fourth compartment were lost
the ship would become dangerously
unstable. It was then reported that water
was $ooding into the reduction gear
room through hollow propellor sha!s
and the command team now believed
abandoning ship was their only option.
Tugs has arrived and were attempting to
pin the ship against the shore but it was
possible she could slip rapidly into
deeper water. The MEO concluded that
potentially all 6 a! compartments would
$ood and the command team decided to
abandon ship.

Crucially, before leaving it was discussed

whether to close the watertight hatches
and doors on 2 deck but the MEO
considered it too risky to go down into
the vessel again. The ship was evacuated
by 0632 with the Captain the last to leave.
Post-incident analysis showed that this
was a mistake – there was time and the
open hatches were the reason the ship
eventually sank completely. The
grounding and the leaking sha!s were
not the reason the ship sank as there still
would have been su"cient buoyancy if
the forward compartments to keep her
a$oat, had they been sealed.

Sinking Clearance More

After running aground attempts were made to stop

the wreck from sliding into deeper water using steel
hawsers, 10 Nov 2018. (Photo: Jakob
Østheim/Forsvaret)

The controversy over the leaking sha!s

can be explained in simplistic terms by a
change made to the Nansen class from
the original Spanish F100 parent design
relating to a reduced underwater
acoustic signature. The ships use
controllable-pitch propellers, the pitch
being set by hydraulic oil pumped down
the sha!s. To meet requirements for
strength and shock loads, it was decided
to install a hollow intermediate sha!
between the oil pump box in the a!
generator room through the a! main
engine room to the $exible coupling in
the gear room. The pump openings into
the hollow sha!s compromised
watertight integrity but this was not
noticed during the design and
construction by Navantia and the
subsequent classi#cation process
conducted by DNV in 2014. The
Norwegian Defence Ministry did not
cover itself in glory by suing the
classi#cation society DNV for $1.7Bn in
damages but was forced to drop the case
when the investigation showed the ship
ultimately sank due to the failure to close
internal doors.

Lessons
It would be wrong to entirely blame the
inexperienced OOW and poor
performance of the bridge team for the
incident, the investigation showed there
were management failures that extended
to the highest levels of the Navy. The
pressure caused by the operational
tempo, something the RN and USN
would recognise, resulted in inadequate
training time and personnel lacking
su"cient experience in relation to their
responsibilities.

The AIBN reports issued 15

recommendations relating to ship
navigation and 28 recommendations
relating to damage control and ship
systems. Key #ndings were improvement
in training and competence for bridge
teams, that warships always activate AIS
when navigating in con#ned waters with
other vessels (something the RN does not
do consistently). Unlike RN vessels,
HING was not #tted with a Voyage Data
Recorder (VDR) used for post-incident
analysis and this should be remedied.
The majority of recommendations to the
navy related to training, especially
damage control in complex situations,
competence in shutting down and
sealing compartments and
understanding, operating and
maintaining safety-critical systems,
especially bilge pumps.

HING passed her #nal FOST inspection

at Devonport in March 2018 but 37% of
the crew had changed in the intervening
8 months before the incident. The crew
all said they had bene#ted greatly from
the FOST programme and their own
exercises but they had not practised for
anything resembling these
circumstances. The simultaneous failure
of several technical systems, time
pressure, signi#cant $ooding, loss of
communication and the fact that this
took place in the early morning proved
overwhelming. Lean-manned warships
reliant on commercially-derived IPMS
and automation perhaps lack the
number of watchkeepers needed for
e%ective damage control. The use of
technology for decision support and
remote control of key systems implies
these tools need to be extremely robust
and programmed to provide fast and
simple advice for a very wide range of
scenarios.

The AIBN report concludes that “The

collision resulted in severe damage to the
vessel, over and above what she was
designed to withstand”. The damage was
signi#cant but nothing like what
potentially could be caused by a weapon
impact. Despite the very heavy
investment in warship survivability
measures, this makes one wonder just
how little damage modern combatants
can sustain without being immediately
crippled. The ship was damaged only on
one side, yet su%ered major internal
communications failures. In is unclear
why ‘runners’ were not sent more
quickly more to pass messages to and
from the bridge, HQ1, Ops room and
damaged areas. HING was extremely
lucky in many ways to su%er no
fatalities. The collision accidents
involving USS Fitzgerald and USS John S.
McCain the previous year killed several
sailors, although neither ship sank.

There is much more to learn from the

report and the Norwegian Navy must
take some credit for being reasonably
open about events and the outcome of
the investigation. Soon a!er the
accident, lessons were shared directly by
the Norwegians with the RN’s FOST
organisation which has in$uenced its
training methods and more widely will
make a valuable contribution to the
preparedness of NATO warships.

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58 COMMENTS

⚡ # Oldest 

4thwatch " 1 year ago %

A lot of damage control issues similar to the loss of

HMS Prince of Wales (1941). Unforeseen design
issues only adding to the certainty of loss.

Reply 

Duker
# Reply to 4thwatch " 1 year ago %

Wartime attack is di!erent , but a better

example of complete loss of ship when it
shouldnt have happened would have been
the ‘slow sinking’ of HMS Ark Royal after a
survivable torpedo hit

Reply

dick van dyke

# Reply to 4thwatch " 1 year ago %

Can’t really see any similarities personally,

HMS Prince Of Wales was bombed and
Torpedoed repeatedly causing damage to
vital systems which happens in War, this
Frigate incident was more akin to a Carpark
shunt.

Reply

Armchair Admiral " 1 year ago %

Wowser. That’s some damage and it’s no wonder

there was considerable confusion. Dont nav radars
have a “collision “ mode to warn the bridge crew
that there is a risk of collision?
AA

Reply 
 DaSaint
# Reply to Armchair Admiral
" 1 year ago %

Only if you use them.

Reply

David Steeper " 1 year ago %

Sounds like one of the big lessons is prioritization.

Systems can tell you you’ve got x number of
problems but not how serious they are. Overall
bloody sobering.

Reply 

RobB
# Reply to David Steeper " 1 year ago%

If you’ve just been hit by a tanker, leaving a

gaping hole in your ship, and you need a
computer to tell you which problem to
prioritize, I think you have identified your
biggest problem right there.

Reply

Andrew Wilde " 1 year ago %

Damage Control HQ in the MCR, sounds comfy.

Surely there must have been damage control
parties fore and aft but the lack of control of
watertight openings in a flood makes you wonder
if the crew knew how to fight the ship in such
circumstances.

Reply

Cammy " 1 year ago %

Lucky really. No explosions ect, oil tanker colliding

wish a ship full of bang pop wizz things..

Are they building replacement? Or have they?

Maybe we can build a couple type 31s for
them..they are a key Nato nation.

 Last edited 1 year ago by Cammy

Reply 

Paul T
# Reply to Cammy " 1 year ago %

There is no sign of a replacement so far – ,a

few options exist o! the top of my
head,bearing in mind the origin of the lost
Frigate (1) Replace her with an existing
Spanish F100 class,with Spain building an
extra F110 Hull to compensate,(2) Norway
replacing her with a single F110 when
Spanish production enables (3) Australia
o!ering a Hobart class as a replacement
and building an extra T26 Hunter Class to
compensate,and finally (4) Norway waits for
the replacement Class to the Fridtjof
Nansen for a solution but with a 20%
reduction in Frigate strength can they wait
that long ?.,obviously option 3 is very
unlikely .

Reply 

Cammy
# Reply to Paul T " 1 year ago %

Yeah Option 3 is very unlikely and all are

probably to be fair. Norway’s prob just
going to save the money and start the ball
rolling on the Next gen replacement,
But What about a type 23 in mean time?
Montrose?.
And Ok maybe they wouldn’t want a type 31
with it being far less capable but building
two might make up for that. It’s a shame we
can’t get orders in to build type 31s in UK
dozens of nations need large Frigates and
how come other European nations can and
do get orders?
When was the last time USA built warships
for foreign Navys? Not including all the
Frigates they did give away or sold cheap.
.

Reply 

Paul T
# Reply to Cammy " 1 year ago %

A stopgap solution might be another option

but neither a Type 23 hand me down or a
New Type 31 have absolutely nothing in
common with their existing Frigates so in
Operational/Training Terms with costs etc i
don’t think that is likely either.

Reply 

Duker
# Reply to Paul T " 1 year ago %

Clearly the training problems indicate a

replacement ship of a di!erent type is
totally out of the question and in a way one
less ship to man ‘solves’ the training
problem in a di!erent way.
The early hours of the morning- like for the
US destroyers- was used to put
inexperienced crew in charge, when the the
actual circumstances of confined waters or
heavy tra"c required the captain and more
senior crew to be on hand. But they wanted
to have a good sleep before arriving at port
around daybreak

Reply

RichardIC
# Reply to Cammy " 1 year ago %

Type 31 isn’t intrinsically less capable. It

depends entirely on how the customer
specs it.

Reply

N-a-B
# Reply to Cammy " 1 year ago %

We’re going to have enough trouble

building our own T31, never mind anyone
elses.

“When was the last time USA built warships

for foreign Navys?”

The 70s and 80s.

Kidd class for Iran (never delivered, added

to USN, ended up in Taiwan)
FFG7 design for build in Australia (six ships)

That’s about it. Prior to that, some Knox

knocko!s for Spain and some Adams class
for Australia / Germany.

Reply 

Duker
# Reply to N-a-B " 1 year ago %

Australia only built a second batch of 2 FFG

ships in its own Williamstown dockyard. The
first 4 came from the US shipyard – Todd
Seattle.

The Israeli Sa’ar 5 class corvettes (1275

tonnes) were built in US by Ingalls (
probably to qualify for the US to pay the
cost as part of the military aid), which were
launched early 90s
One was hit by an Hezbollah missile ( copy
of C-802) o! Beirut, and like Ingstad crew
had done things they shouldnt

Reply

donald_of_tokyo
# Reply to Paul T " 1 year ago %

To my understanding, Norway Navy was

NOT fully manning its 5 frigates. So the loss
of one hull may not be a big problem, at
least for peacetime tasks, I guess?

But, this will make the frigates worn-out

faster than planned. Also, wartime surge
capability is reduced. As introducing
another class of frigate is surely not easy,
supplementing capability might work.

As Nansen-class’s primary task was for

ASW. So, a fleet of UAVs for ASW, controlled
from land, will be a good option. With deep
fjord, such a system will make a good
addition, I guess?

 Last edited 1 year ago by donald_of_tokyo

Reply 

Phillip Johnson
# Reply to donald_of_tokyo
" 1 year ago %

Your understanding is correct. The RNoN

base problem was lack of enough
experienced people. That is pretty much all
it takes.

Reply

AlexS
# Reply to Cammy " 1 year ago %

Norway ( plus Denmark) recently entered

into European Corvette Project.

Reply

Cammy " 1 year ago %

I would have loved to illegally dive this ship, it

couldn’t have been in a more handy place..

Reply 

Duker
# Reply to Cammy " 1 year ago %

Arent there plenty of other ex navy ships

sunk deliberately at the end o! their life- in
more salubrious waters- for explore-diving ?

Reply

Michael
# Reply to Cammy " 1 year ago %

In 35 degree water? I would pass on that

one.

Reply

Mike O " 1 year ago %

A great article. It is sobering just how fragile

modern warships are. I am interested in opinions,
does anyone think we will ever see a resurgence in
the large scale use of armour on warships?

Reply 

Duker
# Reply to Mike O " 1 year ago %

Armour unlikely to help warships in

collisions because of the way the outer hull
armour was attached – literally hung on to
the structural frame. This was against a
loaded oil tanker which cant be ‘deflected’
away.
What would have helped was the
underwater protection against torpedoes,
multiple bulkheads and compartments in
layers along the hull. But that was used for
much wider vessels such battleships and
larger carriers – to this day.
Very good reasons why armour isnt used
anymore and even in its heyday wasnt of
much thickness even in cruiser sized ships
of 10-12,000 tons. Its a basic principle now
the cost and weight is better put into
sensors and self defence weapons

 Last edited 1 year ago by Duker

Reply

Lou Coatney
# Reply to Mike O " 1 year ago %

Look at your County class heavy cruisers

which looked rather like ocean liners and
had lots of flotation thanks to their size,
although not that much armo.r. Then look
at your compact and well-armo.red Colony
class light cruisers and our compact and
well-armo.red Astoria class heavy cruisers …
3 of which sank like rocks after the Battle of
Savo Island. (County class HMAS Canberra
had to be scuttled by (another) U.S.
torpedo, she was so reluctant to sink. See
the excellent Australian book The Shame of
Savo.)
Internal armor for critical internal areas,
yes, but flotation and damage control … and
immediate, provisional recovery from
damage – repair – seem wiser.

I’m in Norway now, and excellent article

about the Ingstad.

Photo: The cardstock paper models of

Convoy PQ17’s Cruiser Covering Force I
(have) designed and built, with a Brooklyn
in the background. (Using my own
comparatively fast/simple Naval Action
naval miniatures rules, it is soon evident
recalling the Force saved an Allied naval
disaster, but the battleships should have
been farther forward to make that
unnecessary.

Reply 

Phillip Johnson
# Reply to Lou Coatney " 1 year ago %

The county class had a lot of reserve

bouyancy but were very doubtful combat
vessels. Given that they were built right up
to the 10,000 ton treaty limit, the only real
‘fitted’ armour was around the magazines.
Some were retrofitted with side armour in
the 1930’s but war interviened before the
program got very far. Most counties,
including Canberra went to war with
nothing more than the hull skin protecting
the machinery spaces. The counties were a
petty good early example of ‘fitted for but
not with’.
Canberra remain afloat after Savo Island
but with no power and no prospect of any.

Reply

Steven Alfred Rake

# Reply to Mike O " 1 year ago %

What this report hit home is just how fragile

a modern Frigate is, It is my belief that we
need to start to armour our vessels as we
have so few of them. The best way is to
have a multi hulled vessel such as a
trimaran with the 2 outer hulls armoured
and having the inner hull for the crews
quarters and sensitive parts of the vessel.
By having a multi hulled design you can
carry a lot more weight as it is spared over
a larger surface area. I just do not believe
that a modern Frigate/Destroyer will last
long in a kinetic engagement and the 3
accidents mentioned in this report (1
Norwegian 2 American) just goes to show
how quickly these modern vessels can be
taken out of e!ective service.

Reply 

Dogs Nads
# Reply to Steven Alfred Rake
" 1 year ago %

BMT’s Pentamaran design was superior to

the catamaran hull form.

But armour doesn’t save you from a

collision with another ship…the briefest
google search which find you all manner of
WW2 Battleships, aircraft carriers, Heavy
Cruisers with huge damage from collisions…
If you hit a 5,500 tonne Frigate with a
112,000 tonne oil tanker a couple of
hundred tonnes of armour will only make
you sink faster…

Reply 

Steven Alfred Rake

# Reply to Dogs Nads " 1 year ago %

I looked at the BMT’s design and it dose

indeed look good and ideal for a
Frigate/Destroyer design. I also agree with
being hit my a super tanker is not good for
the health of the ship no matter what size
of ship you are in. What I am saying is these
investigations highlight the fragility of
modern Frigates and Destroyers. In an
environment were you have a surplus of
incoming I believe that an armoured vessel
would be able to stay on station a lot longer
that the present designs at sea today.

Reply 

ona
# Reply to Steven Alfred Rake
" 3 months ago %

It has been known since Titanic. In order to

prevent damages like these (which are very
similar), one needs longitudal watertight
bulkhead as damages are potentially likely
to penetrate several bulkhead sections.

Reply

Astraea " 1 year ago %

1.I understand that it is RN practice to install the

main cable runs along the inside of their ships’
hulls as opposed to down, or near to, the centre of
the ship. It is clear from what happened to Hinge
that such a practice makes a warship even more
vulnerable if damaged in collision or by an attack.
2. AIS, if used, should have given warning of
collision. 3.Navigational radar can alos be set up
with a guard zone but that may have been
impractical in the confined waters of the fjord.

Reply

Supportive Bloke " 1 year ago %

So the nexus of this report is that if you have a big

hole in a warship and fail to deal with the hole or
then fail to shut the watertight doors the ship
sinks?

I’m sort of wondering what damage control drills

were done and how e!ective they were?

Damage control 101: limit extent of flooding by

shutting watertight doors. Access areas
vertically…….not horizontally…….unless re-closing
doors in sequence. Sound familiar anyone?

Serious management failures post collision.

And OMG the navigational failings. Let’s be honest

a warship was being navigated like a week charter
yacht.

None of this would have happened if the bridge

team was a competent bridge team.

Reply 

DaSaint
# Reply to Supportive Bloke
" 1 year ago %

Big holes sink ships. Especially when

watertight compartments aren’t closed.

Reply 

Supportive Bloke
# Reply to DaSaint " 1 year ago %

Yes, I am sure I was taught that

somewhere?

Reply

Jonathan
# Reply to Supportive Bloke
" 1 year ago %

Yes for me the human factors were what

did it. A bridge team of the most junior
o"cer with a side helping of people in
training, navigating a busy sea lane, in
restricted water at night is sort of asking for
a f**kup of epic proportions.

The issue is actually a universal story, of

systems that can at any time su!er a
critical, catastrophe and life threatening
event insists on the least qualified and
experienced people working and leading
night shifts, as the most experienced
individuals sleep away. We do it
everywhere, from the police, fire service to
ED departments.

Reply 

ona
# Reply to Jonathan " 3 months ago %

It was not a busy lane. A watch commander

shall by definition be competent, and any
junior o"cer if competent should easily be
able to handle anything navigational in that
situation.

Reply

N-a-B " 1 year ago %

Ships float courtesy of Mr Archimedes and stay

upright courtesy of positive righting moments
based on metacentric height. Letting large
amounts of water into the ship compromises both,
particularly away from midships.

It’s not a question of “fragility” or lack of

survivability compared to weapon damage. The
damaged length is well in excess of what you’d
expect a medium weight ASM to inflict. Simple fact
is that opening something like 20% of your length
to the sea, having a largely o!-watch and sleeping
crew with only ten minutes to save the ship,
coupled with power failure – and more
importantly, associated re-start/re-boot time for
systems – is not going to end well.

Moral of the story? Don’t hit things at sea – and if

you’re in a position where you might, keep a
decent-sized DC party on watch.

Always ensure that your critical systems have a

UPS and that when you check the stability in your
fancy CAD model, make sure that the model
represents the actual ship. Assumption being the
mother and father of Captain Cockup.

 Last edited 1 year ago by N-a-B

Reply 

DaSaint
# Reply to N-a-B " 1 year ago %

Absolutely on point!

Reply

DaSaint " 1 year ago %

Let me understand these first points: Operating at

17-18 knots without nav radar and with an
inexperienced bridge crew…in the pre-dawn hours.

 Last edited 1 year ago by DaSaint

Reply 

Joe16
# Reply to DaSaint " 1 year ago %

You forgot “in a commercial shipping lane,

in a Fjord”. Also important factors when it
comes to increasing the risks of collision…

Reply 

DaSaint
# Reply to Joe16 " 1 year ago %

Very important factors Joe16. Very

important indeed!

Reply 

ona
# Reply to DaSaint " 3 months ago %

The tra"c is far from heavy and is very

manageable in that area, and it was so
during the incident. The conditions were
not such that a radar is a necessity for
navigation, given that both the navigators
had the full picture before the incident.

But they didn’t have that, thus a modern

radar operated by competent navigators
would/should have been the obvious tool to
obtain a proper understanding of the
situation. Both navigators are obliged to
ensure a proper understanding of the
navigational situation, and it is a failure by
both when none of them had that
understanding.

Reply

Joe16 " 1 year ago %

Interesting that the legendary FOST doesn’t seem

to train crews to deal with heavy/catastrophic
damage such as this. I know it’s easy with 20/20
hindsight to look back and question this, but
ultimately this kind of training is applicable to
peacetime accidents (such as this) and wartime
action, and so is far more likely to occur in the
grand scheme of things.
Hopefully the changes mentioned at the end of the
 article will address that.

Reply 

N-a-B # Reply to Joe16 " 1 year ago%

Not sure there’s anything a FOST type

organisation could do. Once the big hole
was in the ship, you’re basically dependent
on swiftly closing all WT doors and hatches
to limit extent of flooding. Which
theoretically is easy.

Trouble is, you’ve got what sounds like a

minimal DC party on watch, the vast
majority of the ships company in their
racks, asleep – some of whom were in the
damaged area, power blackout – and
probably IPMS drop out too.

Whoever the poor b8gger in HQ1 was, they

probably had the best part of two minutes
max to find out what the damage state of
the ship was and make a decision as to
whether to close o! the WT doors and
hatches aft, knowing that the berthing
compartments were full of people trying to
get dressed and get to their stations and
closing up would probably kill some of
them.

It’s very hard to get in that mindset in the

middle of the night on what would appear
to have been a routine trip back to port.
Not sure any particular FOST training would
have helped with that. It does suggest a
need for more resilient surveillance systems
and an adjusted watchkeeping bill though.

 Last edited 1 year ago by N-a-B

Reply 

Joe16 # Reply to N-a-B " 1 year ago%

Very fair point, they didn’t have a lot of time

before they hit the shore. I may have mis-
read the article, but I thought they had
rather more time after that point, when
they could have saved the ship from sinking
with proper damage control- maybe the
timeline is more compressed than I
thought.
You’re right though, although all collisions
should obviously be avoided, this one was
certainly avoidable if proper assessment of
the situation had been taken in the first
place.

Reply

Gunbuster
# Reply to Joe16 " 1 year ago %

FOST does train for major system failures

post damage.
An old favourite was a Sink The She"eld
scenario with loss of major systems,
firemain needing a temp firemain and
pump to be rigged, evacuation of the
internal areas to the upper deck, reentry
into the ship and then fighting from aft to
fwd compartment by compartment to get
the ship back.

Post the Nottingham incident that scenario

was run.

Reading the report its shocking that the

Norwegian Navy was so poor with regards
to bridge watch keeping. The RN would
have had 2 nav radars on and possibly the
surface search radar, along with AIS in
receive mode. WECDIS, the electronic chart
system with inputs integrated into if from
AIS and nav radar would be providing
warnings to the bridge crew. The warnings
are CPA, nav hazards, underwater
hazards…. WECDIS has a really annoying
alarm for a reason… You need to accept the
alarm and acknoledege the warning. The
Ops Room would also be providing blind
safety/pilotage as well.

Regarding Damage Control, the RN is really

really good at it because it’s had plenty of
opportunities for lessons Learnt. The DC kit
is good and the people using it are equally
as adept. I speak as an ex NBCDQ!

Reply 

Joe16
# Reply to Gunbuster " 1 year ago %

Sounds like pretty intense scenarios are run

then, which is good! Being an NBCDQ, I
presume you’d have had a hand in coming
up with the training on board and stu! like
that?
While never having served, I’ve had to do a
few hostile environment courses for work
which are often run by veterans. They
seemed to enjoy throwing in hidden bits to
trip you up and make you think, on
everything from trauma care to navigation.
Not sure if that approach is across the
board or not, but it certainly made for some
memorable lessons learned. Or maybe it
was just to beast some civvies a little bit!

Reply

X # Reply to Gunbuster " 1 year ago%

It did make me wonder whether if the

balloon went up and they were part of a
group they could be trusted.

 Last edited 1 year ago by X

Reply

Dogs Nads
# Reply to Gunbuster " 1 year ago %

It’s a wonder why they didn’t attempt to use

the EO system as well when running down
the fjord…

Reply

Tiffy68 " 1 year ago %

I do understand the confusion by the Frigates crew

post incident in the dead of night as we had a
similar rude awaking when Achilles struck a super
tanker in the Channel. If the initial impact is not
enough to alert you from sleep the awkward angle
of heel surely does. Damage to Achilles was limited
to bow section (bloody nose)and internally the
hawser compartment, paint locker and a few egos
on the bridge. Communication, Propulsion and
Steerage were all maintained and shoring of the
collision bulkhead prevented any serious ingress of
water. Considering it was mid 70’s I think we did
ok. It would appear from your report these sailors
were confronted with multiple systems failure and
flooding from gashes in the starboard hull. A
miracle no-one was seriously injured.

Reply 

ona
# Reply to Ti"y68 " 3 months ago %

Sleep got little to do with it, incompetence

and extremely poor bridge routines are the
key factors. Structurally proper and formal
handover between o"cers will ensure
continuity in the understanding of anything
of significance to the safe navigation of the
vessel.

The failure to understand the nautical and

operational situation, the failure to identify
obvious objects, and the failure to take
proper actions in order to immediately
rectify the situation is evidence of the
problematic side of simulator training being
considered as experience and not training.

The brain doesn’t alway connect what

happens in a simulator with identical or
similar situations at sea, and therefore
would not trigger the same reaction.

The tra"c was low and virtually next to

nothing compared with The English Channel
and entrances to Antwerp and Rotterdam
and the crossings which is normal to the
English ports in the entire tra"c separation
zone.

A truly embarrassing incident on the

account of the Norwegian Navy and their
naval o"cers, and it was made worse by
the failure by leading naval o"cers to
immediately acknowledge the responsibility
which is rather obvious to any competent
navigator with experience.

Reply

DJ " 1 year ago %

I still fail to understand why a warship (or indeed

any ship) would be doing 18 knots in a known
shipping lane with both AIS & nav radar turned o!,
in the dark. It’s not as if the Sture oil terminal is a
classified secret. This was in home waters as well,
on the way home, so who was the frigate trying to
hide from? If a modern frigate loaded with up to
date sensors can’t tell a ship from an oil terminal,
we are all wasting an awful lot of money. Yes, I
know, they didn’t turn it on (why?). Good thing that
the government stands the loss. If it was a
commercial ship, I wouldn’t like your chances of a
payout from the insurer. Perhaps the frigate
needed a pilot of its own.

Reply

Paul " 1 year ago %

I think blaming the crew for not using Radar or AIS

is a little shortsighted. In a war setting entering a
port Radar and AIS would be o! and the only way
of practicing for that is to do it for real. It’s a ship of
war not a Ferry. Experience seems to have been a
bigger factor as with all accidents it’s never a single
point of failure. The accident could just as easily be
blamed on shore control that ‘forgot’ a ship was in
his area of control. What turned this from a
nightmare to a total disaster seems to have been
not being able to understand what was going on in
the damaged areas which ultimately lead to the
loss because the captain believed it was already
going to sink. I would imagine all Navy’s around the
world will be looking at this report.

Reply 

D J # Reply to Paul " 1 year ago %

There are ways to run such test without

compromising the results. You can run AIS
in receive mode for example, but keep the
data from the bridge crew (unless the
bridge crew appear to be failing the test).
You can likewise keep the navigation radar
display from the bridge crew. You don’t run
such a test without someone in the
background to step in if needed. The Sture
oil terminal is a well known fixed point. The
fact that it is frequented by super tankers is
also well known. If a ship is contacting you
in such a scenario saying you are going to
collide, wouldn’t you at least slow down?
Turn on the nav radar? Check out AIS?
These are not fishing boats. We are talking
100k tons +. The reasons for the ship
sinking & the reasons for the collision are
two separate but related lessons that more
than a few navies need to pay attention to.

Reply 

ona # Reply to D J " 3 months ago %

Binoculars and visual navigation is still

essential, but they don’t learn that in a
simulator. Worth noting: A jetty or an island
will not move, thus assuming they are is a
somewhat revealing.

Reply

Charles " 1 year ago %

Perhaps Norway should consider upping their

order of Type 212CD submarines as a substitute
for the lost capability. As this site has argued with
regards to the RN, modern diesel submarines o!er
di!erent capabilities than frigates there are strong
arguments around their combat power and cost.

It’s going to be hard to find a satisfactory surface

ship replacement for this loss but the Type 212CD
is already on order and another boat or two would
add significant capability against Russia while
requiring only a small crew.

Reply 

Charles
# Reply to Charles " 1 year ago %

See this article for analysis in an RN context.

https://www.navylookout.com/buying-
conventional-submarines-even-at-the-
expense-of-frigates/

Reply

Adam Harry Cassidy " 1 year ago %

How many times can you screw up at once ?!?!?

Idiocracy !!!!

Reply

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