Exclusive: Sea tragedy case could be heard here

The operator of a cruise ship alleged to have ignored a small fishing boat in distress could face prosecution in Bermuda.

Director of Public Prosecutions Rory Field confirmed that a report on the alleged incident, involving the Bermuda-flagged Star Princess (pictured) has been submitted to his office for consideration.

Mr Field told us yesterday: “The report has been received at my department and a response will be sent out shortly.”

Just over a year ago, the Star Princess was accused of ignoring a distress signal 

from the Fifty Cent, a small fishing vessel with three crew on board.

According to the sole survivor, Adrian Vasquez, aged 18, his crewmates Oropeces Betancourt, 24, died hours after their boat was passed by a large cruise ship and the other, 16-year-old Fernando Osorio, died a few days later.

The Fifty Cent was spotted near the Galapagos Islands two weeks later by a fishing boat and Mr Vasquez was rescued.

Panamanian Mr Vasquez said the nine-meter boat’s engine had failed shortly after leaving the coast of Panama on a day-long fishing trip. It was adrift for a month before the rescue.

Princess Cruises has denied the allegation and said the boat videoed by passengers on the Star Princess was not the Fifty Cent.

According to reports in the Toronto-based Globe and Mail, last September, passengers birdwatching from the deck of the ship saw an apparent distress signal – the waving of a shirt or towel. They notified crew members involved with passenger care, not professional seafarers, and provided pictures of the boat, taken with a telephoto lens.

The message was passed on to the bridge, but the duty watch on the bridge allegedly downplayed the sighting and failed to notify the senior officer of the watch or the ship’s captain.

Princess Cruises said then that a more junior officer had looked to see if the ship was signalling distress and decided it was not.

The incident is said to have happened in the Pacific around 100 miles off the coast of Panama on March 10 last year.

It is understood that investigators from Bermuda travelled to Panama to interview people involved in the case.

Among options open to the DPP are to proceed with a court case if the evidence supports it, dismiss the report due to lack of evidence or decide that a prosecution is not in the public interest.

Culpability denied

Typically, and according to the Merchant Shipping Act 2002, it is the captain who would be held responsible and face prosecution in such cases though his employer, Princess Cruises, has vehemently denied culpability. According to the Act, the ship’s captain is held liable if it found he or she failed to answer a mayday call and could face a fine of up to $50,000 and/or up to two years in jail.

A spokeswoman for Princess Cruises said that video footage discovered of the rescue of the Fifty Cent two weeks after Star Princess passengers said they saw it proved that the boat sighted by them was not the Fifty Cent.

She added that the video had been examined by a retired NASA photo analyst who said the boat seen by the Star Princess passengers was not the Fifty Cent.

And the spokeswoman said: “A drift analysis by a private meteorological firm that examined ocean current, wind and wave data, also concluded that it was unlikely that the Fifty Cent and the Star Princess ever were in sight of each other.

“While this remains a tragic story, we are extremely gratified to have scientific confirmation that Star Princess was never in the vicinity of the adrift boat and that the boat photographed by passengers was not the adrift Fifty Cent.”

But she added: “Nevertheless, we have used this as a valuable learning opportunity and have strengthened our bridge reporting procedures to ensure that all messages of concern from passengers or crew are carefully evaluated by our senior bridge officers.” 

The Star Princess’s registration on the island, like the rest of the Princess fleet, means that it is subject to Bermuda law – and the Merchant Shipping Act 2002, in line with international convention, makes it an offence for a ship not to go to the rescue of a vessel in distress.