Report into Séimí man-overboard tragedy

The Marine Casualty Investigation Board (MCIB) has released its report into the death of a Latvian crew member in a man-overboard incident involving the Irish crabber Séimí WT 388.

The report – the purpose of which is not to attribute fault or blame – says that at approximately 8pm on 4 February, 2023, the 14.94m vessel was shooting a string of pots some 60nm off the northwest coast of Ireland.

As the last pot was leaving the deck, a crewman – named independently as 38-year-old Madis Letsars (FN, 16 February, 2023, ‘Crewman dies off Donegal coast’) – became entangled in the rope attached to the pot and was dragged through the stern door opening, over the side and into the water.

An initial, unsuccessful attempt was made to retrieve Mr Letsars, who was not wearing a PFD, by hauling him onboard using the same line that had dragged him over. A second attempt to recover him was successful, with the crew estimating that Mr Letsars was in the water ‘for no longer than 15 minutes’. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) was administered, but despite the efforts of the crew, Mr Letsars could not be revived.

At 9.46pm, Coast Guard SAR helicopter R118 arrived at the scene. However, owing to a wave height of 4.5m to 5.5m, and poor weather conditions, it was deemed too dangerous to land a winchman on deck. Séimí’s skipper advised the Coast Guard that he would return to Ballyglass, Co Mayo, where the vessel was met by An Garda Síochána and Mr Letsars’ body was removed from the vessel. An autopsy made provisional findings of death due to drowning.

The MCIB report says that of the vessel’s crew of five, the skipper and one other crew member were ‘very experienced’ in operating that type of vessel. They were the only members of the crew to hold valid BIM Safety Training Cards. The three remaining crew had ‘no basic safety training’ and were described as being ‘relatively new to the fishing industry’.

Mr Letsars, who joined the vessel in December 2022, had only completed two trips as a full crew member, and had ‘no other fishing or maritime experience’.

The trip was the first time Mr Letsars had been left alone to supervise the setting of the pots. The report notes that despite him being the ‘most inexperienced member of the crew’, he had successfully set 23 of the vessel’s 24 strings of pots prior to the accident.

The report states that the casualty’s lack of experience and training ‘coupled with a failure to fully appreciate the danger involved in working on the deck of a fishing vessel, such as handling lines in rough weather when shooting a string of pots, and the poor safety culture onboard, were causative factors in this incident’.

It says that the vessel owner – named in the report as Iasc Iorrais Teo, a company owned by ‘an experienced ex-fisher’ – and the skipper did not ensure that those working on the vessel had the necessary minimum standards of training to work on a fishing vessel, and had allowed the vessel to proceed to sea with over half the crew having completed no basic safety training.

An additional contributory factor to the tragedy, it says, was the effect of a heavy swell when ‘carrying out fishing operations on such a relatively small vessel’.

The report also notes that when the skipper attempted to contact Malin Head Coast Guard via VHF, he was unable to do so as Séimí was out of range of the station, implying that the vessel ‘was operating outside Sea Area A1 and therefore outside the area covered by their Declaration of Compliance’.

The investigation cited a number of additional considerations that indicated a ‘poor safety culture on the vessel’ amounting to a ‘contributory factor to this casualty’. However, the report commended the actions of the skipper and crew in successfully recovering Mr Letsars.

The report makes a number of safety recommendations to Ireland’s minister of transport and the owner of the vessel.

This story was taken from the latest issue of Fishing News. For more up-to-date and in-depth reports on the UK and Irish commercial fishing sector, subscribe to Fishing News here or buy the latest single issue for just £3.30 here.

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Main image: MCIB