The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has ruled that a tanker operating company’s decision to let a tanker master work even though he hadn’t been to sleep in more than 50 hours led to an accident in the Gulf of Mexico.
The NTSB issued its report in late November detailing its findings in the Oct. 17, 2020, incident involving the tanker Atina, which struck an oil platform owned by Dallas-based Cox Operating LLC while attempting to anchor, according to a news release. The tanker is owned by Atina Maritime Ltd.
Edward Poitevent II, an attorney for the Louisiana Oil & Gas Association, said the NTSB report offered no surprises.
“The NTSB report has confirmed what we already really knew had happened,” he said. “It was officially stamped, sealed and delivered.”
According to the NTSB report, the company failed to adhere to its own safety guidelines, which require a one-day turnover for senior personnel on a company vessel. That period is one day if the individual worked for the company, and seven if they were new to the company. Poitevent said the lack of sleep certainly played a role in the accident.
“He was probably dazed with a lack of sleep,” he said. “That is over two days without sleep.”
Poitevent noted that while the NTSB report is not a finding of fault, it can serve as a powerful signal that what happened was a result of negligence by the company and the pilot.
“Not going to sleep for 50 hours on a giant oil tanker in the Gulf of Mexico that is full of platforms and other standing objects and at night should be classified by a court and held to be gross negligence,” he said.
While there were no injuries in the accident, the NTSB release set damages at $72.9 million, including $72.3 million for the platform and $598,400 for the Atina.
And while Poitevent said all parties may be hoping for a quick resolution to pending litigation, the company owning the vessel is seeking a limitation of liability.
“Admiralty law allows for the owner of a vessel involved in an accident, allision, sinking or something like that to limit the liability to the value of the vessel in certain circumstances,” he said.
That issue currently is being litigated in courts, and Poitevent pointed out that with so much money on the line, it is likely to be a legal dogfight.
“That is why we argued strenuously for a larger bond,” he said. “There is a very large amount of money involved here that will easily exceed the value of the vessel.”
It is more than a year since the accident, and Poitevent said he doesn’t see the legal maneuvering ending any time soon. He said he expects litigation to continue into 2022.
“You can never tell,” he said. "They might settle tomorrow, or they might settle two years from now or they might never settle and you have to go to a judgment.”
Poitevent concluded that he remains optimistic that the report will pave the way for the compensation that Cox is seeking.