New Zealand ferry accident: Crew pressed wrong button, ship went on autopilot and ran aground

A state-run ferry in New Zealand ran aground, causing 47 people on board to spend the night on board in June. Now, a leaked internal document from the ferry company, Interislander, appears to have found the cause: Someone in the crew pushed a wrong button that sent the ship on autopilot.

New Zealand ferry runs aground. What happened?

On 21 June, the Interislander ferry named Aratere ran aground after 10 pm local time.

Interislander is a state-run road and rail ferry service in New Zealand. Owned and operated by state-owned KiwiRail, it mainly serves between Wellington in the North Island and Picton in the South Island.

Earlier reports had said that the ferry suffered a 'steering failure' and hit the coastline near Picton.

The 47 people on board who spent some 13 hours in the stuck ferry included 39 crew and eight truck drivers.

New Zealand ferry incident: Leaked internal report says...

On Wednesday (July 10), the New Zealand Herald newspaper reported citing a leaked Interislander document that the ferry ran aground "after the crew pressed a wrong button, engaged the autopilot, and sent the ship off course."

"The crew mistakenly pressed the 'execute button' on the autopilot and did not take back control before it was too late," said the report, citing the safety bulletin it had accessed.

The crew noticed the ship taking a wrong turn and tried to regain control, said the report. There was "about a minute" before the propulsion system's direction could be changed, and the ship saved from running aground, but it did not happen.

“The bridge team noticed the ships [sudden turn] … and correctly tried to put the steering back into hand steering mode but were unsuccessful in taking control. Around a minute passed before … astern propulsion was utilised, however, it was too late and the vessel ran aground in Titoki Bay,” the document read, as cited by the Herald.

(With inputs from agencies)