Crew acted ‘heroically’

Press, 24 February 1986, Page 5

Crew acted ‘heroically’

PA Wellington A Soviet news agency has told Russian readers that New Zealand news media reports on the Mikhail Lermontov sinking “make much of the composure and teamwork displayed by the crew” who acted "heroically.” Novosti, in a statement from Moscow, quoted New Zealand and Australian news reports as saying that the composure and teamwork displayed by the crew “ensured the saving of the passengers and the crew in the complicated shipping conditions of Cook Strait, where over 50 passengers died in the wreck of the New Zealand motorship Waihine in 1968.” The crew acted “heroically” according to passengers and Australian and New Zealand dailies, Novosti said. New Zealand also played its part in the rescue.

“The great and active help of the New Zealand vessels couldn’t have made the rescue operation more effective," Novosti said. Novosti also referred to “the joint Soviet-New Zealand commission” into the

sinking, saying that representatives of the Soviet Ministry of Merchant Marine and Baltic Shipping Company, which owned the Mikhail Lermontov, were sitting on the commission. “The conclusion on the concrete causes of the shipwreck will be made by the competent commission set up for the purpose,” said the Soviet Minister of Merchant Marine, Timofei Guzhenko. He said the accident was “yet another proof that even with today’s technology the possibility of accidents at sea still exists.”

Novosti quoted the Mikhail Lermontov’s master since 1972, Aram Oganov, who was on leave when the accident happened, as saying that he thought he might have prevented the shipwreck of a “dear friend. “I sometimes think that if I were on the captain’s bridge I could’ve prevented the shipwreck. However, a pure chance may now and again wipe out our knowledge and experience. No-one is guarantied against an accidents*