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New Wednesday of New Times by Peter Uj.
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Due to the epidemic situation and the postponement of the summer court that intervened, half a year after the preparatory hearing in March, on Tuesday, September 8, the criminal trial of Yuri C. continued in the Metropolitan Court, accused of causing the Accident of the mermaid.
The 64-year-old Ukrainian sea captain is accused by the prosecution of having negligently endangered the transport by water, causing a fatal mass accident and not providing regular assistance. They are asked to serve 9 years in prison and a 9-year ban on the captain from his profession. He was driving a hotel ship named Viking Sigyn when it collided with the Mermaid cruise liner on the Danube near Margaret Bridge on May 29, 2019. The Mermaid immediately sank, 25 South Korean passengers and a crew of two drowned, and authorities are still searching for them. A victim. Seven passengers, all of South Korean nationality, survived the accident.
Since Yuri C. did not plead guilty to any of the charges during the preparatory process, the trial had to continue the evidentiary process in court on Tuesday. The defendant also participated in the trial, as he has been in Budapest under criminal supervision since the accident.
However, “he still does not wish to testify in court.”
He said at the hearing with the help of an interpreter. However, the captain’s previous testimony before the investigating authorities one day after the Sirena accident was presented at the hearing by the president of the Council, Leóna Németh.
Yuri C. thinks the mermaid was outmatched
Yuri C., in his confession at that time and in his clarification added after reading it, also emphasized this Tuesday that on May 30, 2019 he largely knew the direct details of the accident based on what the cruise passengers said. Viking Sigyn. He claimed to have last seen the Mermaid when the small cruiser overtook the Viking Sigyn, which was still moving slowly. The Viking decelerated to 2-3 kilometers per hour on the stretch in front of Parliament so tourists could admire the building, then preceded by the Mermaid, and then the hotel ship began to accelerate approaching Margaret Bridge, opposite the bridge, in the moment of collision 11-12 was traveling uphill at a speed of kilometers.
In his first confession, Yuri C. said that when he saw the Mermaid from the right going uphill in the middle of the river, the ship was getting dangerously close, 5-6 meters from the Viking. However, by this time he was already looking to safely pass the 30-meter-wide Viking through the 40-50-meter-wide section between the piers of the Margaret Bridge.
“2-3 seconds before the accident, my tourists started yelling ‘Boat!’ (ship), and I only felt a strong commotion, but at that moment I did not know which side of the bow the collision had occurred. “ – found in the captain’s confession. Yuri C. claimed that the Viking sailors had first seen the Mermaid passengers fall into the water and, releasing the lifeboats, immediately began to rescue them. And he immediately reported that an accident had occurred in Navinfo, the radio channel that coordinated navigation on the Danube stretch of the capital.
“I did not see the capsized boat, only the passengers in the bow of the boat told me that the Mermaid was in front of us and suddenly it hit us.”
He claimed. The captain then stopped the hotel boat and waited 10-15 minutes on Margaret Bridge for 350 meters before receiving instructions on where to moor the vehicle. He himself remained on the boat the entire way, claiming that he did not see people or life jackets in the water, Viking Sigyn sailors participated in the rescue.
In his first confession, Yuri C., according to the minutes, also stated: “… I think I am responsible for the accident because I could not do anything to prevent it. It was not me who caused the accident because I did everything according to the rules, but I cannot feel guilty because people died.”
However, at a later hearing, he stated that he did not hold himself responsible for the Mermaid accident: “I am not guilty, but I am sorry for what happened and I extend my condolences to the families of the victims.” And in Tuesday’s trial, the captain only confirmed once more that “I did not know the circumstances of the accident: how and what happened, I said everything based on the information I received from the passengers.”
According to experts, the Ukrainian captain misjudged the traffic situation.
Already at the preparatory meeting it became clear to the captain of the Ukrainian ship that he had worked for the Swiss Viking Shipping Company since 2000, but had a navigation license for 45 years, since 1975. He is also well acquainted with the Budapest section of the Danube, where he had place the accident, as he has been driving the company’s ships between Budapest and Nuremberg for three years.
On May 29, 2019, the Viking Sigyn departed from the port of Akadémia Street on the Pest coast shortly before 9 p.m., for Passau, Germany. She claimed that she was not under the influence of alcohol or drugs, nor did her medical condition prevent her from driving the boat.
The facts of the accusation, the statement of Yuri C. and the expert opinion prepared for the evidentiary procedure also agree that the technical condition of the ship was good, Viking Sigyn was registered by radio in Navinfó Budapest according to the rules at 20 : 57, and the water provided information on the ship’s parameters, technical condition, number of passengers and crew in the official language of transport, German.
Heavy rains, night vision, high water levels and passenger traffic characterized the traffic conditions that night, but visibility was still good.
therefore, the Mermaid cruiser in front of the Viking Sigyn was clearly visible to the naked eye, and also to the ship’s technical team.
However, the testimony of Yuri C. and the expert opinions of the forensic experts: Gyula Szabó and László Csaba Hargitai differ on the cause of the Mermaid accident.
According to forensic nautical expert Gyula Szabó, the Sirena, sailing at a speed of seven to eight kilometers per hour, overtook the slowly moving Viking Sigyn in Parliament, but this is a “chapter” of the completely independent sequence of the accident. . The accident was caused by the Viking Sigyn, speeding up time, catching up with the Mermaid and beginning to overtake the transept on the left before passing between the bridge piers.
Thus, contrary to what the captain claims, it was not the Siren that preceded the right, but the Viking Sigyn on the left. It was not the Siren that crossed the path of the Vikings, the Siren was the so-called “right-of-way ship.”
According to the expert, although the choice of route was correct for both ships, as they were prepared to cross the bridge between the pillars under Margaret Bridge, the Viking captain should have assessed that he could no longer safely reach the Mermaid before passing under the bridge.
The collision, they said, could only have been avoided if Yuri C. had decelerated the Viking Sigyn to a speed of about 8 kilometers per hour, staying behind the Mermaid until it passed under the bridge and only overtaking it over the Margaret Bridge.
He had to see
According to the expert, the Captain should have seen the Siren with the naked eye, but on the radar anyway, even after the latter slipped into the dead space of the ship. Yuri C., on the other hand, says that the distance of 5-6 meters from the previous Mermaid was too small for the cruise ship to be detected on radar.
What the expert opinion still differs from the captain’s testimony is the circumstances in which the accident was reported. Yuri C. spoke of an immediate report, but in the opinion of the experts, only a late and only partial report was received from Viking Sigyn regarding the occurrence of the accident. It is also an important detail that, according to the opinion of experts, there was no radio communication between the Viking and the Siren in the minutes prior to the accident.
Regarding the role of the Siren: the expert said that the captain of the ship who died in the accident could have mitigated the severity of the accident. Had he acted prudently, he could have seen the speed at which the Viking was approaching, and if he disconnected the power and turned right, the two ships would have collided only from the side, preventing the ship from turning and sinking immediately. . Although it is not related to the accident, it is also to the detriment of Captain de la Sirena who set sail that day with one less sailor on board than necessary and, therefore, a vehicle “in seaworthy condition.”
In Tuesday’s trial, the court did not complete the hearing of the experts, therefore postponing the resumption of the trial until October 14.
Gábor M. Tóth, Jurij C.’s defender, repeatedly indicated during the trial that he believed the court was violating procedural norms, as it did not adequately ensure that Jurij C. could understand what was said at trial in his mother tongue. (An interpreter was provided for the captain, the defense rather criticized the quality of the interpretation.) He also denounced that the court failed to deliver several documents and that only those parts of the expert opinion were read by President Leóna Németh.
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