The Havarikommission: "Helge Ingstad" thought the tanker was a land terminal

The Hearing Panel has now provided a preliminary report on what it thought was happening.

These are the most important results:

• I did not realize that it was a boat:
  KNM "Helge Ingstad" thought that "Sola TS" was a stationary object. The well-lit port Stureterminalen is located near the airport. And when "Helge Ingstad" entered the fjord, "Sola TS" was docked inside the Stureterminal.
  "From a distance, it would have been difficult to distinguish the lights from the ship from the lights of the terminal," writes the Havarikommission.

• I thought the ship was the terminal:
  When "Sola TS" started to sail north, the lights were the same as when they were at the terminal. They always had the tires on. And "Helge Ingstad" believed that it was the terminal that they saw, signifies the Havarikommission.
  "Although the tanker left the wharf at about that time, the fires did not move much as the tanker ran from south to north," said Ingvild Ytrehus, head of the department.

• Shift just before the accident:
  There was a gear change on the bridge between 3:40 and 3:45, just before the accident. The design that the lights were the terminal, not a ship, continued into the next quarter, writes the Havarikommission.
• Thought that they spoke to another ship:
  As "Helge Ingstad" headed straight for "Sola TS", Sola asked them to immediately stand at the helm. He does not make the warship, despite repeated warnings.
  "They thought they were communicating with one of the three ships from the north that they followed on the radar," writes the Hearing Panel.

The Harbor Commission writes that their preliminary analysis is as follows: "No single action or incident resulted in the accident".

• As a result, they did not balance:
  The Havarikommission writes that "Helge Ingstad" did not want to turn to starboard, it was because they thought the lights they saw were the terminal, not "Sola TS" who was against them.
  – When the tanker aboard the tanker called the frigate around eleven o'clock and was asked to turn to starboard, they announced that they could not do it. It was based on the belief that the lights they had seen were still and that a starboard move would take them directly into the illuminated object, Ytrehus explains from the Havarikommission.

Sends two security alerts to the armed forces

The Harbor Commission believes that it has found two critical security mistakes and sent two alerts to the armed forces.

– The Maritime Commission has made a critical finding for the safety of the sealed section of the vessel. This is supposed to apply to the other four ships of the Nansen class frigate, writes the Havarikommission.

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What can they not answer?

KNM "Helge Ingstad" therefore thought that the lights they drove were "a fixed object". The question then is whether it was an immobile object or moving, why they were always going and did not turn away.

The Havarikommission states that "Helge Ingstad" thought to speak at one of the ships going north that they saw on the radar. Why did they stumble against one of the red dots and no longer escaped?

The Havarikommission can not answer that.

"This will show further investigations," said William Bertheussen, CEO of VG Havarikommission.