Palermo, ferry hits dock
"tgcom 20 august 2005"
A damage to the controls, 31 injured
A damage to the controls, the explanation supplied from the commander of the Emilia, the ferry of the Tirrenia, departed from Cagliari that, once reached the harbour of Palermo this morning, has hit violently against the dock during the berthing maneuvers.
1,997 passengers aboard, 400 the cars, of which some have been damaged. You can count a thirty wounded, whose conditions, fortunately, do not arouse worry.
The commander does not want to say a lot: " A technical inquiry has already been opened in order to verify the causes of the accident, I can only say that the controls did not work", he says without adding more. Then in the course of the morning he will be listened from the officers of the Harbor Master's Office of Palermo and from the technicians of the Rina, the Italian Registry of Shipping, that are part of the security Committee in charge to inquire on the modalities and the causes of the accident.
Only on the base of they’re mention the Power of attorney of Palermo will also be able to open a judicial inquiry. Also from the press office of the Tirrenia they explain that at the origin of the violent impact there has been a damage: "The controls have not worked during the approach maneuvers of the dock.
Informed the engineroom to manually put the engine forward, all has been useless: the controls have not worked in this case. Therefore the anchor was let go, but it was not enough to refrain the violent collision". In the impact the front zone of the ferry was receded of approximately 30-50 centimeters, damaging also some joints of the shutter used for the boarding and the disembarkation of the motor vehicles.