A lookout was looking at social media on his mobile phone just before a collision which left three fishermen dead, an official report said today (Thursday 8 March).
The three men who died were Mircea “Mitch” Ilie, 40, of Elm Grove, Brighton, Irinel Popovici, 41, of Barcombe Road, Brighton, and Traiam Dumitrache, 50, a fellow Romanian, from London.
The only survivor was Elvis Cojocariu, a fellow Romanian from London, who was pulled from the sea suffering from hypothermia after five hours in the water. He was spotted clinging to a buoy.
A report by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch said that the lone lookout in the scallop dredging vessel Vertrouwen “allowed himself to become distracted by using his mobile phone and working on a laptop computer”.
He was filling out a log entry on his computer which should have been completed before setting off from Shoreham Harbour.
The report also found that the fishermen were not properly equipped or prepared. For example, they had no distress flares or fog horn. The report said: “The three sea anglers drowned because they were not wearing lifejackets or buoyancy aids and were unable to raise an alarm.”
They went out with rods and lines to fish for mackerel in Mitch Ilie’s boat James 2 a few hours before the collision which happened just before 12.30am on Sunday 6 August last summer.
The Vertrouwen, owned by MacDuff Shellfish, didn’t actually hit the James 2 in the collision.
But the wash from the dredger swamped the smaller boat and it sank in less than two minutes.
Here’s what the Marine Accident Investigation Branch report said.
At 0026 on 6 August 2017, the 26.24m commercial fishing vessel Vertrouwen collided with the 5.64m recreational motor cruiser James 2 in Sussex Bay, 1.6 miles south east of Shoreham Harbour.
Neither vessel was damaged by the impact but James 2 was swamped by Vertrouwen’s wash and sank.
Three of the men on board the motor cruiser drowned. A fourth was rescued from the water five hours later by a passing fishing vessel.
Vertrouwen had just left port and was on passage to Grimsby. James 2 was drifting with the wind and tide while the four men on board were rod fishing for mackerel.
The collision occurred because Vertrouwen’s lone watchkeeper did not see James 2 either visually or by radar and by the time the sea anglers realised they were in danger of being run down, they were unable to get out of the way.
The three sea anglers drowned because they were not wearing lifejackets or buoyancy aids and were unable to raise an alarm.
