Dive to the 'Villa de Pitanxo', one year after the shipwreck

On February 15 of last year, the Galician fishing fleet suffered the worst accident in its recent history.

refrigerated ship

suffered a sudden stoppage of its main engine when it was working in the middle of a storm 450 kilometers east-southeast of the Canadian island of Newfoundland.

Blown by 10-meter waves, with a 30-knot wind and a temperature of around seven degrees below zero, the ship was left at the mercy of the sea.

In a few minutes, the trawler

owned by the shipowner Pesquerías Nores and with its holds practically full of fish, it listed and foundered.

Of the 24 crew members of it, 21 died - nine corpses were rescued and the rest disappeared at sea.

The only survivors, the skipper Juan Padín;

His nephew, Eduardo Rial, and the Ghanaian sailor Samuel Kwesi, offer contradictory versions of the incident in the legal case for which the boss and the shipowner are being investigated for reckless homicide and crimes against the safety of workers.

In full judicial investigation, and when the first anniversary of the tragedy is fulfilled, the Government is preparing to undertake an epic expedition to the depths of the North Atlantic.

The objective is to locate the ship to inspect it with a robot equipped with cameras that help the experts to clear up the questions about the accident.

The families of the victims received a notification on Monday from the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda confirming the search for the ship.

This has been the main demand in these months of the relatives of the victims, who are eager to recover the bodies of the 12 sailors who are still missing and who in October received the unanimous support of the European Parliament.

"It is positive that they get off the ship, although there is no hope of finding them after so long,

and spokesman for the relatives.

In a sea of ​​doubts surrounding the underwater expedition in Newfoundland, with a budget of 3 million euros, the tender for the search, location and inspection service for the wreck has been published, to which specialized national and foreign companies will be able to apply.

The processing of this contract is regulated by the Public Sector Contracts Law, and it is expected that the search operations will be carried out throughout the summer, conditioned by the weather and the availability of exploration means.

The operations at a depth of more than 800 meters will be carried out in several phases, according to the plans announced by the Permanent Commission for the Investigation of Maritime Accidents and Incidents (CIAIM).

Initially, the seabed will be explored at the geographical point of the sinking of the ship and in the surrounding area where it is considered most likely to be submerged.

After its location, it will be visually inspected using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) equipped with cameras to examine different aspects of the vessel, its equipment, fishing gear and the seabed that may be of interest for the judicial investigation.

In order to analyze all the parameters of the incident, the first simulation tests have also been carried out with the model of the ship in the marine dynamics laboratory of INTA-CEHIPAR, in Madrid.

These works will make it possible to detail the navigation of the vessel in the wave conditions existing at the time of the accident, to verify its behavior under different loading conditions and towing the fishing gear, in accordance with the main hypotheses about the circumstances of the accident that are handled by the commission experts.

The results of these tests will be analyzed with the other evidence on the accident available by the CIAIM in a process that will be carried out in the last phases of the investigation.

However, the commission has announced that it will publish an interim report after the meeting to be held this Thursday, where it will be submitted to its members for approval.

The report will expose the data related to the ship, crew, activity, as well as the search and rescue operations that were carried out a year ago now, when the trawler sank.

The CIAIM will not include in its report the hypotheses and analysis of the work of its experts, nor the conclusions about the causes of the accident, pending the conclusion of the investigation.

The commission has played a fundamental role in the case directed by the Central Court of Instruction 2 of the National Court, since two of its technicians have been appointed judicial experts in the criminal case against the boss, Juan Padín, and Pesquerías Nores.

The judicial investigation has focused on determining whether or not there was negligence in the captain's actions and whether the tragedy could have been avoided.

The version offered by the shipping company six days after the shipwreck in a statement seemed conclusive and credible.

This, according to the shipowner, adhered to the data provided by the captain himself, before Juan Padín returned to Spain: a sudden stoppage of the ship's main engine during the tacking maneuver of the rig was the cause of the accident.

The machinery of the fishing boat stopped working and it was left without propulsion or government.

Then, the massive entry of water from the stern, especially in the net collection area, flooded the boat, listing it and sending it to the bottom.

Only Juan Padín, his nephew Eduardo Rial and the Ghanaian sailor Samuel Kwesi managed to survive in a lifeboat.

They were rescued by another Galician ship,

and transferred to Newfoundland.

There the three gave the same version of the shipwreck to the Canadian authorities, but upon arriving in Spain, Kwesi changed his statement and, with it, the course of the case.

As the sailor revealed to the Civil Guard, the captain acted negligently, because he did not heed the sailors' warnings to drop the net, which would have allowed the heel to be corrected, nor did he give the order to abandon the ship.

He also said that there were no survival suits on board for everyone and that they were only worn by the captain and his nephew: "The accident could have been avoided," says the witness for the prosecution of the National Court.

One week before returning home

At 4 in the morning on February 15, 2022, when the crew of the

was finishing the fishing campaign with their holds practically full, in a few minutes everything went down.

Days before the shipwreck, some relatives of the crew had received the expected message that sailors use when the holds are full and announce the return home: "We are almost sealed, in a week we are back," he wrote to his wife Francisco De Pazo, the ship's engineer and one of the missing.

In the cabins there were several sailors resting and others sick with covid.

In fact, the autopsies determined that seven of them were positive with a high viral load.

For Ghanaian sailor Samuel Kwesi, it was his first voyage on this vessel, which was dedicated to catching Greenland halibut, skate, redfish, northern shrimp and cod in North West Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) fishing grounds. English).

Kwesi, who has obtained Spanish nationality, has been received as a hero during the tributes being held in Marín (Pontevedra) to commemorate the anniversary of this tragedy.

"He transmits the truth, but his life is broken," affirm his companions on this complicated legal journey.

At the moment, the victims have not received any compensation, "this is not the time for economic claims and we will do it when it comes, our priority now is to know the truth about what happened and why 21 people died," says the spokesperson for the victims.

Among the countless signs of solidarity that they have received, there has even been a donation of 10,000 from a French foundation that the shipowner company did not communicate to them.

"We found out when he entered it as a payroll advance, and someone will have a problem with the Treasury for that," reproaches De Pazo.

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