Ship captain committed major ‘lapses,’ reveals PCG
MANILA: Major “lapses” were allegedly commited by the skipper of a Hong Kong-flagged cargo vessel when it collided with a Filipino fishing boat late on Saturday night off Occidental Mindoro province in Southern Luzon where 14 crewmen went missing and are still the subject of expanded search and rescue operations.
This was revealed by Vice Admiral George Ursabia, the head of the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG), who said that they received a distress signal at the PCG headquarters from the master of the Vienna Wood three hours its collision with the Liberty 5 fishing boat.
According to Ursabia, the tragedy occurred at 10:20 pm on June 27 while the PCG center received the distress signal from the Chinese ship only three hours later at 1:46 am on June 28.
Ursabia considered the three-hour delay as “crucial” which could have resulted in the PCG and other concerned agencies immediately launching search and rescue operations for the misssing crewmen.
“My theory is that the boat already turned over so while it was still early and not taking so much yet, it is not yet submerged or capsized. As such such, we could have still gone inside the other space to rescue those trapped missing crewmen,” Ursabia told a press briefing in a mix of Filipino and English.
In particular, he pointed out: “We are looking at the responsiveness and propriety of sending such distress call. It’s a question for the investigator to really establish why it took them three hours to send such signal.”
Yet another alleged “lapse,” the PCG chief added, was that the Vienna Wood vessel did not appear to employ small boats in a determined bid to rescue possible survivors from the fishing boat.
But, at the same time, the collision could have been caused by poor visibility and unfavorable sea conditions that could have also have contributed to the tragedy, Ursabia admited.
Nevertheless, he said that pending the complete investigation, it was possible that criminal and civil cases would be filed against the owners of the Chinese vessel even as the PCG resumed on Tuesday search and rescue operations for the missing crewmen.