Lawrence D'Oliveiro
2 months ago
As happens all too often, it wasn’t a single mistake that led to the
grounding of the Aratere ferry, it was at least two mistakes.
One: A missed waypoint in the preprogrammed navigation route caused the
autopilot to steer right before it had cleared the end of the bay, so it
turned straight towards the shore.
Two: None of the crew knew how to turn off the autopilot. Or they thought
they did: press the override button. They tried repeatedly. But it didn’t
work. Because none of them knew they had to hold it down for 5 seconds.
This was a feature of the new steering system that had recently been
installed, but somehow that little detail was left out of the crew
training.
Finally they were able to turn off the autopilot, but that was too late to
stop the actual grounding; all they could do was try to minimize the
damage. That part they were trained for, and they knew how to do.
grounding of the Aratere ferry, it was at least two mistakes.
One: A missed waypoint in the preprogrammed navigation route caused the
autopilot to steer right before it had cleared the end of the bay, so it
turned straight towards the shore.
Two: None of the crew knew how to turn off the autopilot. Or they thought
they did: press the override button. They tried repeatedly. But it didn’t
work. Because none of them knew they had to hold it down for 5 seconds.
This was a feature of the new steering system that had recently been
installed, but somehow that little detail was left out of the crew
training.
Finally they were able to turn off the autopilot, but that was too late to
stop the actual grounding; all they could do was try to minimize the
damage. That part they were trained for, and they knew how to do.