The board of inquiry initial results have come out:

In short:Crew failed to disengage the autopilot and neglected proper manual control checks, leading to the grounding of HMNZS Manawanui.

All 75 aboard were evacuated safely.What's next?

Disciplinary actions are underway as officials address training and operational flaws

ABC news
www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-29/crew-mistakes-caused-new-zealand-navy-sinking-off-samoa/104665376?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=messages

That was fast,
Usually this type of inquiry takes years.

The complexity of modern auto pilots on ships must be mind boggling as it appears to be a reoccurring theme in large vessel groundings. An on off switch would be a game changer

I was President of a Board of Inquiry when one of our ships ran aground on Blues Pt. This is almost a copy of the cause of the Sydney grounding. The crew misidentified why the ship wasn't answering the helm. The breakdown in actions on the bridge are the same in both incidents.

I'm hoping that's not the Blues Point at North Sydney/ Milson's Point? That would be a little hard to hide!

Unbelievable that this can happen. How many people on the bridge with how many years training between them. How much did all that training cost, let alone the vessel?
Because they didn't realise the autopilot was on?? Or how to disengage it?
How fast were they going and how long before they ran aground should they have taken action?

Here is the timeline , Tarquin

Painful reading. It took 10 minutes to disengage the autopilot!

The inquiry established that at about 1815 hours, the crew attempted a routine turn to starboard, initially to a course of 340 degrees. This would keep them within the survey area. The crew then attempted to turn to starboard towards an easterly course, but the ship did not respond as intended. Shortly after, the ship left the approved survey area. In an effort to stop the ship, the crew conducted further actions that they believed should have resulted in reverse thrust. Manawanui did not slow or stop, and instead started to accelerate towards the reef, grounding for the first time at or about 1817 at a speed of more than 10 knots. The ship then continued to travel for around 400 yards further before becoming stranded, grounding multiple times along the way. The crew was only able to regain full control of the ship's propulsion system 10 minutes later when they managed to disengage the autopilot. The inability to turn the ship to an easterly direction from the 340 degree course and stop the ship is attributed to the ship being in autopilot mode.

In a perverse way that kind of makes sense now.

I have never seen a hydrographic boat or ship survey under autopilot in a couple of years of observation. The helm is always hand steering ready to take immediate orders from the OOW.

From what I took from the extract above, is nobody realised the autopilot was engaged, they thought they were hand steering, 2mins from survey route to impact is very close, I would expect the CO to be on the bridge, watching everything intently but not having the con when operating that close in.

In a perverse way that kind of makes sense now.

I have never seen a hydrographic boat or ship survey under autopilot in a couple of years of observation. The helm is always hand steering ready to take immediate orders from the OOW.

From what I took from the extract above, is nobody realised the autopilot was engaged, they thought they were hand steering, 2mins from survey route to impact is very close, I would expect the CO to be on the bridge, watching everything intently but not having the con when operating that close in.

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tarquin1 said..
Unbelievable that this can happen. How many people on the bridge with how many years training between them. How much did all that training cost, let alone the vessel?
Because they didn't realise the autopilot was on?? Or how to disengage it?
How fast were they going and how long before they ran aground should they have taken action?

Similar things have happened in airliners, when pilots didn't realise the autopilot was still on. Human decision making is very complex and sometimes errors happen, which is surely important to sailors.

There are tales of airliner flight crews saying that they were distracted by a racket, not realising that the racket was an alarm. One chief pilot got their co-pilot to pull an alarm fuse to keep it quiet, not realising what it meant.

For our own safety we should note that even pros, who train harder than we do, make human errors.

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Jethrow said..
I'm hoping that's not the Blues Point at North Sydney/ Milson's Point? That would be a little hard to hide!

It was indeed. The ship had a steering breakdown and the bridge misidentified the problem. The skipper ended up driving it up onto the sea wall on the western side of our Blues Pt.

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tarquin1 said..
Unbelievable that this can happen. How many people on the bridge with how many years training between them. How much did all that training cost, let alone the vessel?
Because they didn't realise the autopilot was on?? Or how to disengage it?
How fast were they going and how long before they ran aground should they have taken action?

The more complex the systems the more complex the decision making can be.
Yes they cocked up, but as one who has been in similar situations, in aircraft, and has conducted an inquiry into a ship grounding I do understand how it can go wrong. We are only human!

Thank god they don't have weapon systems,,, what!!!! they do.

Maybe they should install one of these!
There is a reason the standby button is RED.
Couldn't slow down turn or do anything to avoid the accident!
What exactly is involved to turn the AP off! Who the **** was in command and didn't even know if the AP was on or not!

Was A Norwegian Vessel .
Wonder if inductions were complete,or are all systems set up to a universal framework ?

In my experience the Norwegian's English far exceeds the average Australian school leaver. Their manuals and instruction are great.

Enna Fronn was the ship's original name, she was fitted with 2 x Diesel-electric driven Steerprop ST-35 azimuth propellers and dynamic positioning twin bowthrusters.

The manoeuvrability of podded ship has to be experienced. No rudders and driven by a joystick. Have a look at this below when she was in sea trials.


Who knows what passage was plotted in the autopilot?
Not that it happened, but it would take some time for the ship to swing from autopilot to heading mode. On the ship I'm used to (not the Kiwi one) the pods take can take up to 30secs to do a 360 revolution to reorient. Without rudders the pods could be angled off in any direction. There is no way you can manually steer a podded ship, they need the computer to trim the pods to get the correct heading.

Not the ship's fault, was an awesome bit of kit for survey and really a Swiss Army knife of the sea, just what NZ needed.

www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/dec/02/tesla-three-car-crash-sydney-dfo-homebush-shopping-centre-ntwnfbBe interested to see how this plays out.....!