Viking Line: Fuel delivery failure caused M/S Amorella to run aground
CRUISE line Viking Line has largely determined the sequence of events that led to the passenger ferry M/S Amorella running aground off the Åland Islands on Saturday.
“There are always blackouts in this business, it happens. It should not happen, but it does, and it does to everyone,” Viking Line CEO Mikael Backman stresses.
On a ship, a blackout is the failure of the on-board power generation system, which causes the ship's propulsion machinery to stop.
After looking into the incident on Saturday and Sunday, Tony Öhman, the head of Viking Line's marine operations, has determined the early sequence of events but maintains that several investigations are yet to be conducted. “The auxiliary engines failed and the main engines a minute later.
They were not successfully re-started until three minutes later, when it was already too late, the bow of the ship had already touched aground,” Öhman explains.
Although the term may conjure an image of a small apparatus, auxiliary engines are in fact two-megawatt power plants fuelled by residual oil.
CRUISE line Viking Line has largely determined the sequence of events that led to the passenger ferry M/S Amorella running aground off the Åland Islands on Saturday.
“There are always blackouts in this business, it happens. It should not happen, but it does, and it does to everyone,” Viking Line CEO Mikael Backman stresses.
On a ship, a blackout is the failure of the on-board power generation system, which causes the ship's propulsion machinery to stop.
After looking into the incident on Saturday and Sunday, Tony Öhman, the head of Viking Line's marine operations, has determined the early sequence of events but maintains that several investigations are yet to be conducted. “The auxiliary engines failed and the main engines a minute later.
They were not successfully re-started until three minutes later, when it was already too late, the bow of the ship had already touched aground,” Öhman explains.
Although the term may conjure an image of a small apparatus, auxiliary engines are in fact two-megawatt power plants fuelled by residual oil.