- He pointed out that "at that time there was already a risk for the people who were on board."
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| Gibraltar assists a grain carrier after colliding with another ship |
Trouble in Gibraltar: Picardo admits that he refused to bring the OS35 to port and that the captain ignored his instructions
The Chief Minister of Gibraltar, Fabian Picardo, has stated that the ship OS35 once had the impact and was asked to stop, but "it did not stop, it did not follow the instructions of Gibraltar and said that it had no damage".
As he explained in an interview with TVE, the ship "went out to the Strait to continue its journey and once in the Strait, contrary to Gibraltar's instructions, the water entered the ship so much that the captain could not continue his trip and then had to accept the instructions of the Captaincy of Gibraltar".
In this sense, Picardo has pointed out that "at that time there was already a risk for the people who were on board and he directed it to the place where it was possible to save lives".
"If we had brought it back to the port it would have sunk and there would have been a large spill of fuel", asserted Picardo, who added that "all the technicians endorse the decision made by the Captaincy of Gibraltar". "It is not a political decision, it is a technical decision," he added.
The Chief Minister of Gibraltar has indicated that there is an ongoing investigation by the Royal Gibraltar Police that will determine the facts, "but the information that is provided to us once the events occur is exactly that, that the captain disobeyed the orders of the Maritime Captaincy ".
It should be remembered that the Government of Gibraltar has begun to extract the fuel from the bulk carrier OS35, which remains semi-sunken since it is "well contained" after the fracture detected in the hull as a result of its collision with another ship, while a team of Diving will perform an external inspection and determine the extent of the break.
According to the latest update released by the Gibraltar Contingency Council at 07:00 this Thursday, the situation of the ship OS35 "has remained stable" during the night and the additional monitoring carried out by means of drones and thermal images from the land " has revealed no significant changes in the situation."
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