THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Ministry of Shipping, Road Transport and Highways has requested the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency to carry out a safety investigation into the blast on board the vessel ITB Jacksonville which resulted in the death of five Indian crew members.The Director-General of Shipping, India, who is currently probing the blast on the ship manned by an all-Indian 15-member crew, has found discrepancies in the statement given by the master of the vessel Captain Rajesh Kumar and the information obtained by the Directorate through other sources pertaining to the flag of the vessel.According Rajesh Kumar’s statement, the vessel, owned by Platinum Fleet Limited, Lagos, Nigeria, and managed by Tubbs Marine and Energy Limited, Lagos, was registered with the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis and bore the latter’s flag. Earlier the ship authorities had told the media that the vessel was registered with more countries, including Panama, Liberia and the United States of America.When contacted, the Panama administration confirmed that the vessel was not registered with them. St. Kitts and Nevis Administration informed that the vessel was provisionally registered with them in 2009 and the registry had expired in June, 2010. Liberia and USA are yet to respond.As per the provisions of the International Maritime Organisation Code of Conduct on Casualty Investigation, the primary responsibility to investigate marine accidents rests with the flag state, i.e., the country in which the vessel is registered, based on which the DG Shipping forwarded the request to Maritime Administration and Safety Agency.The blast that occurred on board ITB Jacksonville on September 4 had claimed five lives, including an engineer hailing from Thiruvananthapuram, Manikuttan.
Comments
0 comment