At a press meet, the officials played up the recordings of the communication between the two vessels a few minutes before the collision to establish that Khalijia was at fault and it did not pay heed to the warning.
Officials from the MSC Ship Management, Hong Kong, which owns container vessel MSC Chitra, said on Friday that the tragedy happened because bulk carrier MV Khalijia-III was misdirected.
At a press meet, the officials played up the recordings of the communication between the two vessels a few minutes before the collision to establish that Khalijia was at fault and it did not pay heed to the warning.
In the recording, it was clearly audible that an MSC Chitra official was trying to alert his Khalijia counterpart. He shouted: “Khalijia, can you hear? You’re very close… you’re very close….” But no reply came for the other side. Moments later, Khalijia collided with MSC Chitra, which caused one of biggest marine tragedies Mumbai has ever seen.
Also, the officials used maps and diagrammatic representation to demonstrate how the accident took place.
Captain N Malhotra of MSC Chitra said: “Chitra was going out of the port while Khalijia was entering. Chitra followed the right track and was on the south, while Khalijia came closer and closer and continued to move further. Till the last minute, officials on the ship kept contacting Khalijia to convey that they had come very close and should change their direction. But they did not respond, which resulted in the collision.”
Malhotra also said their vessel was moving in proper direction as guided by the pilot from the port.
Also asked if the Vessel Traffic Monitoring System (VTMS) had alerted Chitra, Malhotra said: “Officials on the vessel had access to both VHF of the MbPT (Mumbai Port Trust) and JNPT (Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust) and the VTMS. But there was no such communication from the monitoring system.”
An inquiry has been initiated to find out whether an error on the part of the VTMS led to the tragedy.
Malhotra said: “International marine pollution experts have been appointed to advise and assist in containment and clean-up operations with the assistance of the coast guard and local
authorities.”
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