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Norway has begun raising the elite warship that sank after getting rammed by an oil tanker
Norway has begun raising the elite warship that sank after getting rammed by an oil tanker
Christopher Woody,ReutersFeb 26, 2019, 20:57 IST
The shipwrecked Norwegian frigate KNM Helge Ingstad during a salvage operation near Bergen, Norway, February 26, 2019.Pool/NTB Scanpix/via REUTERS
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Two crane ships early on Tuesday began raising a submerged Norwegian navy frigate that collided with an oil tanker in November and has been stranded off Norway's west coast since, Norway's armed forces said.
The collision with the Malta-flagged tanker Sola TS injured eight people and caused the temporary closure of a North Sea crude export terminal, Norway's top gas processing plant, and several offshore fields.
Raising the Helge Ingstad, one of Norway's five frigates, is expected to take five to six days and will require calm weather - maximum wave height during the operation cannot exceed a half-meter, or about one and a half feet, the armed forces said.
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"The work must be synchronized, so the cranes must be completely stable, next to each other," the armed forces said in a statement. The salvage operation has already been postponed several times due to rough weather.
At the time of the collision the tanker was full and displaced about 113,00 tons — more than an aircraft carrier. The frigate displaces just under 5,300 tons.
The collision tore a large hole in the starboard side of the frigate's hull, flooding interior compartments.
The $400 million, 442-foot-long warship was returning from NATO's massive, multinational Trident Juncture military exercise when it collided with the 820-foot-long tanker.
Trident Juncture, the first NATO exercise of its size since the Cold War, also saw other ships get banged up in the rough waters of the Arctic and North Sea.
In a preliminary report released at the end of November, Accident Investigation Board Norway said control of the frigate's rudder and propulsion systems was lost, which caused it to drift toward shore and run aground about 10 minutes after the collision.
According to the preliminary report, the frigate's automatic identification system was turned off, which made it harder for other ships to recognize it, and there was confusion on the bridge due to a change in watch. The report also found that warnings to the frigate, which was headed into the port, went unheeded until too late, allowing the outbound tanker to run into it.
Since the accident, personnel have been working to wrap lifting chains around the hull. Two barges have now been anchored next to the frigate, and four large hoists on the barges will slowly lift the warship. The ship will be put on a sub-surface barge and then raised to the surface.
Once aboard the barge, the frigate will be shipped to Haakonsvern naval base in Bergen and could arrive some time during the weekend of March 1 to March 3 if the operation goes according to plan. Norway's armed forces have said they are evaluating whether the warship can be repaired or if a replacement needs to be ordered.
(Reporting by Gwladys Fouche and Nerijus Adomaitis; editing by Jason Neely)
