The National Transportation Safety Board has confirmed that its investigation ruled pilot error as the cause of an October 2011 vessel collision in the Houston Ship Channel.
A Greek-flagged chemical tanker, the Elka Apollon, was inbound in the channel while the container ship was inbound. Both ship’s pilots had earlier agreed by radio to pass near the Houston and Bayport ship channels’ intersection. As the vessels were about to pass each other, the Elka Apollon tanker’s pilot failed to correct the vessel’s path; it crossed the channel and crashed into the container ship.
Some of the containers fell onto the chemical tanker’s deck, but no fatalities resulted from the accident. No injuries were reported.
The NTSB investigation found the inappropriate response of the Elka Apollon pilot was the cause of the incident. Other factors that contributed include the narrow waterway and density of traffic in the channel at that time. Those factors, and the channel’s banke effects, allowed for very little room for error in navigation.
The Jones Act attorneys of Maintenance and Cure have spent decades representing crewmembers who have been injured while working on container ships and chemical tankers.
