The Helge Ingstad collision was a ship collision between the Norwegian frigate and the Maltese tanker Sola TS. The accident happened on the night of 8 November 2018 in the Hjeltefjorden north of the Sture Terminal in Øygarden Municipality.
The frigate was assigned to Standing NATO Maritime Group 1 and was with the group on its way to Dundee in Scotland after the Exercise Trident Juncture 2018. The frigate broke out of formation on the evening of 7 November to sail along the coast. The plan was to head west towards Scotland north of Haugesund. In Hjeltefjorden, the frigate collided with Sola TS, which was on its way to the United Kingdom with crude oil.
An attempt was made to ground the frigate, but it sank and lay in shallow water until it was raised on 27 February 2019. The tanker suffered no major damage. Eight people on board the frigate were injured in the accident, none of them seriously.
After thorough investigations, it was decided that it was unprofitable to repair the ship; and in February 2021, Helge Ingstad was towed to Hanøytangen for recycling.
Ships Helge Ingstad
HNoMS Helge Ingstad was a , delivered to the Norwegian Navy in 2009. The vessel was long and had a top speed of over . It had 137 people on board, eight of whom were slightly injured. The ship had taken part in the NATO exercise Trident Juncture, and the Norwegian Armed Forces initially stated that it was on its way back to its home port at the Haakonsvern Naval Base. Later this was corrected to mean that it was on its way to Dundee in Scotland. According to NATO, the ship was conducting navigation training when it collided. The frigate had no pilot on board. It sailed without sending its position via automatic identification system (AIS), thus the ship was visible on radar, but not identifiable to other traffic and the Fedje Vessel Traffic Service Centre. AIS was activated only after the collision. Other vessels' names, position, speed and course would be visible on the frigate's chart plotter even if they themselves did not transmit AIS. The frigate notified the traffic center in the usual way when it approached the waters, and this cleared Helge Ingstad into the area. Both on radar and chart plotter, other vessels in the waters would have been visible with their speed vectors. The vectors would show the calculated collision point.
The frigate cost around NOK 3.5 billion when new. In 2018, it was accounted for at NOK 1.8 billion. Helge Ingstad was, at the time of the collision, part of Standing NATO Maritime Group 1 (SNMG1).
Sola TS MT Sola TS is a tanker built in 2017 and registered in Valletta, Malta. It is long, and had 24 people on board during the accident. No one on board was injured. The ship was heading north, and had set out from Stureterminalen 20 minutes before it collided with the frigate. It was loaded with 625,000 barrels of crude oil.
The tugboat Tenax escorted the tanker at the stern. The tanker had a pilot on board.
In contrast to Helge Ingstad, Sola TS only suffered minor damage to the bow after the collision and was never in danger of sinking. The ship had to sail to a shipyard in Gdańsk for repairs after the accident, and at the end of December 2018 was back in normal sailing again.
Collision
According to the Attorney General, the overall behavior of Helge Ingstads bridge crew was negligent. Prior to the accident, the frigate was navigating without the AIS activated, which is not unusual for naval vessels. Broadcasting of own AIS identity was activated only after the collision. According to recordings from marine VHF radio that Verdens Gang published on 10 November 2018, there was radio communication between Sola TS, Helge Ingstad and Fedje Vessel Traffic Service Centre prior to the accident. Three minutes before the collision, Sola TS asked the Fedje Vessel Traffic Service Centre which ship was approaching. Fedje Vessel Traffic Service Centre center replied that it did not know, while Helge Ingstad remained silent. On Sola TS an attempt was made to establish contact using an Aldis lamp (Morse lamp). Nor did Helge Ingstad react to this. The maritime traffic center came back and said it could be Helge Ingstad. Radio contact was then established between Sola TS and Helge Ingstad, and Helge Ingstad was asked to turn to starboard. They did not comply, and the collision occurred. The freighter MS Vestbris passed the frigate immediately after the collision. The mate of Vestbris saw no light on the frigate. It is not unusual for the navy's vessels to only display regulated navigation lights and otherwise night lights on the bridge; with a closed vessel, only the bridge and lanterns emit light.
The tanker suffered damage in the bow. It was given a hole of in the plates on the impacted side, at the level of the anchor block. The bulkhead lining on the starboard side of the bow was bent in several places, the anchor cleat was pushed in and had a hole in the upper part. The windlass went out of service and the hydraulic motor was most likely damaged. The chain lock was partially bent, the anchor ripped out and pulled out ≈ of chain.
The anchor cleats on Sola TS are designed as large "horns" that extend well beyond the ship's side, so that the anchor will not come into conflict with the underwater bulb in the bow. The frigate was hit well above the waterline, but the anchor cleat tore up an ≈ long gash in the hull. The damage opened several watertight sections to the sea. First, 127 of the 137 on board were evacuated. Later, the captain decided that the last ten should also evacuate the ship. At 06:40 (Central European Time) everyone on board was brought ashore. Six of the injured were sent to the local emergency room, while two were sent to Haukeland University Hospital.
According to the audio log that was later published by Verdens Gang, Helge Ingstad reported a loss of momentum and somewhat later that the ship had run against the ground. When Ajax and other auxiliary vessels dispatched from Stureterminalen found Helge Ingstad, the vessel had already grounded. Frigates of the Fridtjof Nansen class are equipped with a steerable electric azimuth thruster from Brunvoll AS. This is mounted directly under the bridge and can be pulled into the hull. In an emergency, the thruster can be used as a propulsion machine. Approximately of helicopter fuel leaked into the sea from the frigate. The Navy held a press conference on 8 November and said, among other things, that the frigate had run against the ground. Furthermore, it was said that the frigate was held against the shore to prevent it from sinking.
Hollow propeller shaft In the collision, the anchor cleat on Sola TS tore a long gash in of the hull on the starboard side of the frigate. The gash started above the main deck. The frigate capsized due to the impact and the gash reaches the waterline approximately at the bulkhead of the ship. The frigate was divided into 13 watertight sections. The split tore open two, a bath area and a generator room. The propeller shafts pass through the punctured generator compartment and the shafts were hollow throughout. Water was therefore led into the gear room between the forward turbine room and the aft engine room. The gear compartment was flooded. Here, the drive shafts to the turbine and engine were also not sealed and both engine rooms were flooded. Thus, five to six of the watertight sections were lost and the vessel was evacuated. Later Helge Ingstad sank. The remaining sections may not have been completely sealed either. Later investigations have shown that when the ship was abandoned, the vast majority of watertight bulkheads and hatches were left in an open position. Over time, water penetrated into ever new sections as the vessel slowly sank.
Consequences After the collision, Equinor chose to close production at Stureterminalen. This resulted in a shutdown of the Oseberg oil field, the Grane field, the Svalin field, the Edvard Grieg field and the Troll gas field. Production at Kollsnes was also halted. Gassco feared an explosion with consequences for a gas pipeline away from the accident site. Production resumed in the evening of the same day.
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] The lifting operation was led by the Royal Norwegian Navy with the support of Defense Material in collaboration with the external actors BOA Management and DNV. The Norwegian Coastal Administration was responsible for environmental measures. The police were responsible for enforcing the exclusion zone around the vessel, which was on land and at sea.
The side of the frigate was impacted and partially underwater. To prevent it from sinking or becoming more unstable, it was secured with cables to land in the days after the accident. The day after the accident, personnel from the Royal Norwegian Navy were on board to further secure the cables on board and extract data information from logs.
The navy took responsibility for raising the frigate, for which they were criticized. The Green Warriors of Norway claimed that the Royal Norwegian Navy did not have the necessary expertise, and wanted the Coastal Administration to take over. It was also claimed that the cables securing the frigate to shore were incorrectly fitted and undersized. In the early morning of 13 November, several of the cables snapped, causing the frigate to sink further. In a press conference later the same day, the navy rejected criticism of the salvage operation and claimed that the cables had been installed correctly. BOA Management AS was engaged to raise and transport the vessel.
The two crane ships Gulliver and Rambiz from the Belgian company Scaldis were hired to lift the frigate onto the semi-submersible barge BOAbarge 33. The diving vessel MS Risøy from SubseaPartners prepared to empty the frigate's fuel tanks. They contained of marine diesel oil. The lifting depended on the weather conditions and was postponed several times. The lifting itself started on 26 February 2019. The weather forecast was worrying and a decision was made to move further elevation to Hanøytangen. In the evening of 27 February, Helge Ingstad started to be lifted from the two cranes. The frigate was transported to Hanøytangen. On 2 March the vessel was raised and transferred to the barge. On 3 March, the tow started to Haakonsvern Naval Base where it was moored at the main quay approximately at 11 p.m. Here the ship was to be disarmed, inspected and repaired. The hull was afloat again five to six weeks after.
Aftermath