Fatal accident inquiry finds liferaft failure contributed to deaths of three fishermen

About this case:

• Citation:
  [2022] FAI 8
• Judgment:
  External link
• Court:
  Sheriff Court
• Judge:
  Sheriff Principal Derek Pyle

The bodies of Paul Alliston, Martin Johnstone, and Christopher Morrison were discovered on 9 April 2016 after their vessel, the Louisa, sank around 200 metres from the shore. A fourth crew member, Lachlan Armstrong, was able to swim to the shore and was later rescued by helicopter.

The inquiry was conducted by Sheriff Principal Derek Pyle under the Inquiries into Fatal Accidents and Sudden Deaths etc (Scotland) Act 2016.

Overdue for service

On 4 April 2016, the Louisa and its four crewmen sailed from Uig on the Isle of Skye on a fishing expedition. The crew fished for around 20 hours a day until the following Friday evening, when Mr Alliston, the skipper, decided they should rest in Mingulay Bay. No lookout was appointed during this time. In the early hours of Saturday morning, the crew awoke and discovered the vessel was down by the head and foundering bow first.

The crew proceeded to launch the liferaft but its CO2 inflation cylinder failed. They put plastic buoys into the liferaft to attempt to give it buoyancy, but when they got into the liferaft it began to sink. Mr Johnstone and Mr Armstrong both decided to swim to shore, with only Mr Armstrong being successful, while the remaining two crew stayed with the liferaft.

An alert from the vessel’s emergency beacon was detected by satellite and sent to the Coastguard, who arrived at Mingulay Bay at around 4:13am and discovered Mr Alliston and Mr Morrison face-down in the water near the liferaft. Only Mr Morrison’s body was able to be recovered, while Mr Johnstone’s was found 50 metres from the shore. The medical cause of death for all three men was drowning.

The Louisa and its lifesaving equipment were salvaged by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch and taken to the River Clyde for inspection. An MAIB investigator, Mr Hance, gave evidence that their investigations into the cause of the flood were inconclusive. An expert witness led by the Crown at the inquiry proposed five scenarios which could have caused the vessel to sink, three of which he readily discounted.

The vessel’s defective CO2 cylinder had been refurbished by Thameside Fire Protection Company Ltd, which admitted that it had mislabelled the cylinder resulting in it not being filled after the refurbishment. It was also accepted by the owners of the Louisa, Duncan and Murdo Kennedy, that by the date of the accident the liferaft was overdue for a routine service.

Extensive efforts

In his determination, Sheriff Principal Pyle said of the cause of the flooding: “Mr Hance said that he had experience of other cases where the cause of the loss of vessels remained unknown. In my opinion, the loss of the Louisa is another one. I agree with the Crown that even on the balance of probabilities the evidence does not support either scenario as being the one to be preferred. Accordingly, the reason for the flooding of the hold remains unknown.”

Turning to the other factors in the case, he said: “The Crown has proved to the necessary standard that the reason that the cylinder was empty of gas was because of the failure of Thameside to fill it during the service.”

He added: “While the [Louisa’s] owners did not directly cause the deaths, they could have prevented them by properly discharging their responsibilities to maintain the vessel. Their failures underline the importance for all owners of fishing vessels to follow the rules on their maintenance.”

Turning to whether the crew’s fatigue had contributed to the accident, the sheriff observed: “The reality was that on the night of the accident the sea and weather conditions were benign in Mingulay Bay. There were no other vessels in the vicinity and if the vessel had not flooded for a reason which is unexplained there is no evidence that the lack of a lookout would have caused a problem at all.”

Sheriff Principal Pyle concluded: “It will remain a disappointment, particularly for the families of the deceased and Lachlan Armstrong, that it has not proved possible to identify a cause of the flooding which caused the foundering of the Louisa, despite the extensive efforts of the MAIB and the Crown, both of which acted with proper dispatch. The direct cause of the deaths of the three fishermen was the failure of the liferaft to inflate due to failures by Thameside Fire Protection Limited.”

The sheriff further recommended that a proposal by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency recommending that all new solid fill lifejackets have a minimum buoyancy of 150 Newtons should be pursued with the International Maritime Organisation.