By Ryane Li
An accident occurred in Norway and left a multi-million dollar warship sunk in a Norwegian fjord. A Malta-registered oil tanker collided with and scored a large hole in the side. The KNM Helge Ingstad is one of five warships of the country’s ships and was in the midst of navigation training before it struck the tanker that was sailing out of port. The crew onboard drove the ship onto the rocks to prevent it from sinking while the tanker was relatively unharmed.
What’s worse is that the recovery effort was faulty too and the cables that were holding it up snapped. The frigate remains in the war and is sinking rapidly as only the radar and antennas at the top are what remains of the ship above water level. It’s a wonder how such a this military-specialized ship could not avoid something so slow-moving as a 150,000 ton oil tanker. The Norwegian military has not said much about the incident, which injured 8 of the total 137 on board. A joint Norwegian and Maltese investigation is going on about how a warship that was designed to take heavy damage and keep going could falter from an oil tanker.
The total cost of this incident has resulted in a substantial economic loss, thankfully the oil tanker is not severely damaged and has not caused an oil leak, which could have caused a plummet in Norway’s economy and the environmental disaster would impact most of the western coast of Norway. This incident has raised many eyebrows about the capability of Norway’s navy as well as decrease the cost of the navy as the warship does not need to be cleaned and maintained over the next 20 years.
