Twitt Nav Ltd. has agreed to a settlement of $27 million with the Norwegian government as compensation for the loss of the Norwegian warship KNM Helge Ingstad in a collision with one of its oil tankers.
On the early morning of 8th November 2018, while returning from a NATO exercise, radio contact was established with the oil tanker SOLA TS, accompanied by VSP TENAX, advising the warship to alter its course. However, the sailors aboard believed they were communicating with another vessel they were tracking on the radar. They also mistook the approaching oil tanker with its deck lights obscuring the navigation lights for the shore installation. When they realized their error, the tanker was within 400 meters, and a collision was unavoidable. The collision itself damaged the hull extensively, and the ship sank despite efforts on 13th November. The tanker itself was largely unharmed and was able to reach its destination. It was later sent for repairs and was back in service by December.
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The following salvage operations involved taking the ship to Haakonsvern Naval base for stripping sensitive equipment. The vessel was declared a total loss when the expected costs of repairs came up to be $1.4 billion, almost 3 times the ship’s cost. However, a new order for a warship could not be simply placed because commissioning a single ship would incur a disproportionately high cost for the ship.
The initial allegations against the ship manufacturer were retracted after investigation reports. The crew and the captain were largely to blame for the initial disregard and for not realizing that many of the systems were still functioning even after the collision, which would have prevented the ship from sinking.
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