Loud horn noise which wakes up people of Glasgow identified as ship signal malfunction

Glaswegians who were woken up by a loud horn sound in the early hours of this morning can sleep at peace now as the sound was identified as a ‘false alarm’ emergency signal from a ship at Clydebank's fuel depot.

Sarah Cameron took this photo of the ship when it finally passed the Golden Jubilee at 1am this morning after the false alarm went off(Credit: @SjFireDragon and @Scotservs).

Just before 12:30am this morning (Friday), seven short blasts and one long blast from a ship’s horn were heard across Glasgow waking up many people across the city.

People awakened by the sound took to twitter with one user claiming that it was like ‘the purge starting.’

After a coast guard rescue team investigated the scene, the sound was identified as a false ‘general emergency’ marine alarm signal from a ship which was safely tied up at the fuel depot at Rothesay Dock.

The Greenock coastguard rescue team who received ‘a high number of reports’ about the incident tweeted at 1.18am today: "We can confirm that a vessel in the Clydebank/Erskine area had a malfunctioning distress system resulting in distress horns being activated around 00:30.

"Our operations centre have spoken with the vessel in question and can confirm she is safely alongside and in no distress.”

The ship was identified as the Sten Aurora, a chemical and oil products tanker currently sailing under the Norwegian flag and berthed in Clydebank.

Sarah Cameron, a volunteer with the medical transport charity, Scotservs, who was present at the scene at the time of the alarm going off was able to initially identify the ship.

Ms Cameron said: “I was down at the riverside at the Golden Jubilee on the phone with the coastguard while the alert was still going off.

"The coastguard confirmed there was only one ship operating on the river at that time - the Sten Aurora- but that it wasn’t responding to their hails.

“I found it pretty quickly still berthed at the fuel depot on Old Dock Road.

“I spoke to the harbour master there who confirmed the vessel was fine, it was in the control of the Clydeport pilot and that it had been an accidental activation.

"So glad everything was okay with the Sten Aurora and glad with Scotservs I was in a position to help.”

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