Key Crewman Dozing as Ferry Capsized, Probe Told

The crewman responsible for closing a British ferry’s forward doors was dozing when tons of water poured through the opening and the vessel capsized off Belgium, killing nearly 200 people, an investigator said Monday.

Government commissioner David Steel also said at the start of an inquiry into the March 6 disaster that operating procedures of the ferry company, Townsend Thoresen Lines, were “sloppy” and “dangerous.”

He cautioned against pinning all blame on seaman Marc Stanley, 27, who was supposed to close the bow doors of the ferry, the Herald of Free Enterprise. Steel said there was no system for allocating the work, and Stanley often found someone else had done his job.

Stanley, who was present at the inquiry Monday, had been doing maintenance work the evening of March 6 and, when finished, interpreted the words “That will do” from a senior officer to mean he was off duty, Steel said.

“He went to his cabin and he eventually dozed off,” the commissioner said in testimony before High Court Judge Barry Sheen on the first day of an inquiry expected to last six weeks.

The 7,951-ton ferry had at least 543 people aboard when it heeled over on its port side just outside the harbor after setting out in good weather on a regular run from Zeebrugge, Belgium, to Dover.

Salvage crews refloated the vessel Monday and towed it to a mooring. Divers found four more bodies inside, raising the confirmed death toll to 182.

Steel said the “only tenable explanation” for the sinking was that the ferry sailed with the bow doors wide open, water flooded in, the bow dipped and the ferry spun around, ending up on its side, partially submerged.

If the ship had not settled on a sandbank, “there would have been no survivors,” said Steel, who represents Transport Secretary Nicholas Ridley.

“One of his (the captain’s) instructions leaves the impression that the master was required to assume all was well,” Steel said, as Capt. David Lewry and Stanley listened silently.

“These procedures were manifestly and inherently dangerous. They were procedures which the master had no business to operate.

“We must be careful not to allow the weight of this tragedy to fall on the unsupported shoulders of an assistant boatswain (Stanley),” Steel said. “It cannot be right that the primary defenses of this ship against the sea should be left solely to the responsibility of a petty officer.”

A British newspaper reported Stanley was separated from other survivors in a Belgian hospital because he was shouting, “It’s my fault, it’s my fault. I didn’t lock (the doors) properly.”

Steel said Stanley went back into the ferry unhesitatingly to help save passengers.