NZ to investigate trawler sinking

The Oyang 70 fishing trawler. Photo / Supplied

New Zealand will foot the bill to investigate the sinking of fishing vessel Oyang 70 even though it was registered in Korea and sank in international waters.

The 82m ship sank yesterday morning about 800km southeast of Dunedin, putting it far outside the 12 nautical mile limit in which the ship would be New Zealand's responsibility to investigate.

But Transport Accident Investigation Commission (TAIC) spokesman Peter Northcote said it was not unusual to investigate accidents involving foreign-registered vessels in international waters.

Under the International Maritime Organisation code, the country to which a ship is registered is responsible.

"But under those provisions, the flag state can ask for assistance from a more appropriate authority," he said.

"That's what's happened in this case."

Mr Northcote confirmed New Zealand would foot the bill for the investigation.

"We take responsibility for the investigations we conduct, and people pick up their own costs in that sense," he said.

"We're funded to conduct about 40 inquiries a year and this will be one of them.

"If the incident had happened within a 12 mile limit, we would automatically be doing it."

There was nothing unusual with the TAIC investigating an accident involving a foreign-registered ship in international waters, Mr Northcote said.

"The fact is vessels get into trouble all over the world, and a lot of the sea is not actually within someone's 12 mile limit," he said.

"In this case, the incident involved a ship that was actually under contract to a New Zealand company, and the incident happened in our Exclusive Economic Zone."

The Oyang 70 was chartered by Christchurch company Southern Storm Fishing and based in Lyttelton.

Mr Northcote said the TAIC assisted with international investigations "a half dozen times a year".

"Not always as the lead investigation agency - it may be that we are involved with collecting information on behalf of a colleague agency overseas.

"We have another investigation on our books at the moment which involved a foreign-registered vessel which was working in the oil fields outside the 12 mile limit, but we picked that up."

It was likely Korean investigators would assist with inquiries into the Oyang 70 sinking.

"Typically an investigation of this sort will involve inquiries in relevant countries, and we would anticipate that our Korean colleagues would be doing any information-gathering and inquiry work that was required in Korea."

No New Zealanders were among the ship's 51 mainly Indonesian crew members, of whom 45 have been rescued.

The bodies of three crew who drowned have been recovered while those of the Korean captain Shin Hyeon-gi and two Indonesians are missing, presumed drowned.

- NZPA