RMT repeats calls for action on maritime safety

May 20th 2014

Immediate

RMT repeats calls for action on maritime safety as inquest opens into the tragic sinking of the Swanland off the Welsh coast in 2011

As the inquest opens into the deaths of six Russians sailors who died when their cargo ship the Swanland sank off the coast of Gwynedd in November 2011 maritime union RMT has repeated its calls for those responsible to be prosecuted and for the Government to take action to prevent any repetition.

Just two of the eight-man Russian crew survived when the MV Swanland sank as it carried quarry stone from a jetty near Llanddulas, near Colwyn Bay. The hearing in Caernarfon, which opened yesterday, is expected to last three days.

RMT Acting General Secretary Mick Cash said:

"The shocking and damning Marine Accident Investigation report into the avoidable and tragic sinking of the Swanland in the Irish Sea should have shamed our own government and the international maritime industry into urgent action but the practices that led to the events back in 2011 still continue to this day.

"This rusting death trap of a vessel had been flagged out to the Cook Islands and allowed to dodge the most basic of safety and maintenance regimes. The seafarers on board never stood a chance. Their lives were lost in the name of profit and greed.

"RMT continues to call for corporate manslaughter charges to be laid against those who sent these lads to their deaths, an end to flagging out and the dodging of safety regulations and action by the UK government to end the scandal of the ships of shame sailing out of British ports and in British waters.

"RMT will not let those responsible for tolerating and encouraging the lack of basic safety that led to the Swanland tragedy off the hook. A repeat of this disaster is just waiting to happen and warm words and lip service will achieve nothing. The only answer is decisive and hard line action."