Wednesday, December 4, 2024

New Zealand Navy ship lost due to series of human errors

They didn't turn off the autopilot:

A Court of Inquiry that was stood up following the grounding of the Royal New Zealand Navy dive and hydrographic ship HMNZS Manawanui in Samoa on October 5, 2024, determined that the incident was the result of human error.

"The direct cause of the grounding has been determined as a series of human errors which meant the ship’s autopilot was not disengaged when it should have been," said Rear Admiral Garin Golding, who stood up the Court of Inquiry in order to understand the facts of what occurred.

"The crew did not realise Manawanui remained in autopilot and, as a consequence, mistakenly believed its failure to respond to direction changes was the result of a thruster control failure."

And so the autopilot drove the ship onto the reef.  It seems that the manual on how to deal with this has "check that the autopilot is turned off" as step 1.

 

12 comments:

Old NFO said...

Attention to detail...sigh... Checklist are a thing!

Glen Filthie said...

Oh well that's good! I'd hate to think the accident had anything to do with diversity and commisioning menopausal lesbian officers and vibrant and diverse crew people...

Gerry said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Gerry said...

An autopilot is quite capable of steering a vessel around a reef or bar IF you put the correct way points in.
Navigation be hard!

Peteforester said...

So... A New Zealand naval ship goes down under... How fitting...

Skyler the Weird said...

The Captain was busy diving instead of driving the ship

Tree Mike said...

Awright, that was funny.

KurtP said...

Not a nautical engineer, but-

It seems like letting manual input override the autopilot would be a thing.

...........You know, for emergencies.

matism said...

But that would not be the Microsoft way!

jadair04 said...

My HD used to have a throttle lock, if too tight you needed to remember to rotate counter-clockwise. If you didn't you would be in for a surprise in an emergency. Know your equipment and set drills for reaction to the unexpected or undesired.
Obviously not covered in bridge watch training on this vessel. A ship lost due to absolute incompetence in leadership.

jabrwok said...

"A Court of Inquiry that was stood up"? So the witnesses didn't show up for the inquiry?

Aesop said...

Almost like the "women drivers" trope was based on actual real-world experience for a hundred-plus years...

New Zealand Navy discovers Reality, film at 11...