Deaths of fishing crew members a maritime tragedy

The Mari­time Uni­on says the con­firmed death of three Indone­sian crew mem­bers miss­ing after sink­ing of a fish­ing ves­sel Oyang 70 is a tragedy.

The Korean-owned Oyang 70 sank early this morn­ing approx­im­ately 400 naut­ic­al miles off the Otago coast.

In addi­tion to the three deaths, three crew mem­bers are still miss­ing and 45 crew mem­bers were picked up by anoth­er fish­ing ves­sel the Amaltal Atlantis. Res­cue oper­a­tions are under­way to find the miss­ing men.

The Oyang 70 depar­ted from Duned­in on the morn­ing of 14 August.

Mari­time Uni­on Gen­er­al Sec­ret­ary Joe Fleet­wood says the sink­ing is a mari­time dis­aster and ini­tial reports that the ves­sel had cap­sized in good weath­er con­di­tions were extremely dis­turb­ing.

The Mari­time Uni­on would be work­ing with the Inter­na­tion­al Trans­port Work­ers Fed­er­a­tion to provide any assist­ance it could to crew mem­bers, and also to find out why the sink­ing occurred.

At 38 years of age the Oyang 70 was one of the old­est fish­ing ves­sels in New Zea­l­and waters.

The sink­ing comes just a few months after two over­seas crew mem­bers died from asphyxi­ation aboard the bulk car­ri­er TPC Wel­ling­ton in the Port of Whangarei in May 2010.

Mr Fleet­wood says the Uni­on has encountered ongo­ing prob­lems exper­i­enced by over­seas crew on mer­chant and fish­ing ves­sels, includ­ing health and safety prob­lems.

Oyang 70 is owned by Sajo Oyang Cor­por­a­tion, a com­pany incor­por­ated in Korea, and is registered on the Korean Ship­ping Registry and flies the Korean flag.

Oyang 70 has oper­ated in New Zea­l­and waters since the 1980s. It was con­victed of spill­ing oil in Nel­son har­bour last year.

It is chartered by South­ern Storm (2007) Ltd who have offices in Christ­ch­urch.