Guard tells of wall of smoke on death trawler

Published on Monday 16 May 2011 18:22

A HARBOUR security guard has told how he was beaten back by a wall of dense smoke as he tried to board a trawler on which the bodies of three fishermen were later found.

Alan Beedie, 61, described how he twice attempted to gain entry to the blazing 90ft boat berthed at Fraserburgh harbour but was forced back on both occasions.

He was giving evidence on the opening day of a fatal accident inquiry at Peterhead Sheriff Court into the deaths of the three crewmen who died on the Banff-registered Vision II in August 2008. They were Rimants Venckus, 50, from Latvia, and Ramilito Calipayan and Benjamin Potot, both 33 and from the Philippines.

Mr Beedie said he had been on patrol in the harbour in the early hours when he noticed smoke coming from a vessel. He opened a door on the boat but was immediately engulfed in smoke. He climbed a ladder and tried to enter the vessel by another door to the wheelhouse but was again beaten back. Mr Beedie said there was nothing more he could do and he called the emergency services which arrived at the scene five minutes later.

Alexander Jack, 50, from Gardenstown, Aberdeenshire, who became the owner of the vessel only the day before the tragedy, told the inquiry it was not unusual for foreign fishermen to sleep on board their vessels.

A report on the blaze by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch said the fire had probably been started by an electric fan heater in the galley or an unattended smouldering cigarette.

It concluded the two Filipinos had probably died sleeping on benches in the galley.

The deaths of the three foreign fishermen led to claims by the International Transport Workers' Federation that "unscrupulous" Scottish skippers were exploiting migrant workers because of a shortage of local crews - accusations strongly denied by Scottish fishing industry leaders.