Emergency tug axeing was right, coastguard says at Transocean Winner hearing
ByLindsay Razaq
The UK Parliament’s transport select committee questioned why the captain of MV Alp Forward was towing the 17,300 tonne Transocean Winner in a storm on Monday, August 8.
The boss of the UK Coastguard insisted last night that the decision to withdraw an emergency tug from the west coast of Scotland had been “vindicated”.
Sir Alan Massey, chief executive of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), claimed it would take a “very unfortunate coincidence or some very bad luck” to prompt any consideration of a return to two towing vessels.
And he told MPs he couldn’t find any evidence to suggest that a second tug, based in Stornoway, would have altered the outcome of the Transocean Winner disaster.
