VILLA DE PITANXO

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Inspector testified at National Court

On Feb 9 an inspector testified at the National Court and explained that there were life vests for all the crew members aboard the 'Villa de Pitanxo'. The inspector from the Vigo Maritime Captaincy who inspected the ship before it set sail for Newfoundland on its last voyage, assured that the ship fully complied with the required navigability and safety measures. The inspector testified before the Central Court of Instruction number 2 of the National Court.

Conclusions of investigation report became known

Last week the conclusions of a report prepared by the Permanent Commission for the Investigation of Maritime Accidents and Incidents (CIAIM) became known, based not only on images taken by the 'Ártabro', but also on the statements of the survivors and other information collected. In it, the experts pointed to a human error by the captain Juan Padín as the "most probable cause" of the ship's sinking. Furthermore, they considered the version of the Ghanaian crew member Samuel Kwesi's version, that the 'Villa de Pitanxo' had become hooked the nets at the bottom of the sea and the captain tried to make several maneuvers to solve the problem with the effect that the ship started taking in water until the engine stopped, without listening to the sailors who asked to release the nets, to be "plausible" and saw "inconsistencies" in that of Padín and his nephew Eduardo Ríal, the third survivor, indicating that "the most probable cause" of the engine stopping would be the list of the vessel- Experts also doubted how the second life raft from the vessel was released. Padín always stated that, when he gave the order to abandon the ship, he went to help inflate it, leaving the first officer in charge of it, and then go to release the other raft, on which he got on. However, experts now doubted whether this lifebuoy was unhooked manually or whether it released itself from the 'Villa de Pitanxo' when the ship sank. The raft was found empty and, according to the investigation, it was confirmed that no crew member boarded it. Currently, the investigation also points towards the ship's owner, the Nores Group of Marín (Pontevedra), due to the conditions that the sailors would have on board. Specifically, two men who were part of the crew on previous trips assured the judge that they never carried out fire or evacuation drills and that they hardly had breaks.

Tender for wreck investigation

The Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda has advanced on March 13, 2023, in the tender, for three million Euros, for the search, location and inspection service for the wreck of the 'Villa de Pitanxo' off the coast of Newfoundland. This tender, started at the beginning of February and now with the file open, serves as support for the investigation of the accident that is being carried out by the Permanent Commission for the Investigation of Maritime Accidents and Incidents, according to the Ministry. Two judicial experts -ministry officials-, who must prepare a report within the framework of the investigation of the National Court into the sinking of the Galician ship on Feb 15, 2022, have insisted on the importance of accessing the wreck to determine the causes of the shipwreck, one of the main claims of the relatives of the victims. The appropriate means for this would be sending a ship equipped with multibeam sonar equipment to locate the wreck and a team of operated vehicles to the sinking area. remotely by radio signals or via a cable from the mother ship. The Permanent Commission for the Investigation of Maritime Accidents and Incidents (CIAIM), an independent body attached to the Ministry, considered that it is "probable" to find the wreck near the site of the accident and for this purpose began the necessary procedures in November to search for it in Atlantic waters.