A Polish sea captain who crashed his ship into an unmanned gas platform in the North Sea was jailed for 12 months yesterday.

After the accident – which caused between £7 million and £10 million of damage – the sailor, Zbigniew Krakowski, helped himself to a bottle of vodka that was reserved for tipping the workers who unloaded the ship.

Krakowski, 56, pleaded guilty to being nearly three times over the legal alcohol limit and entering a 500-metre (1,600ft) exclusion zone around the Viking Echo gas platform, 40 miles (65km) northeast of Cromer, Norfolk.

Lincoln Crown Court was told that Krakowski, from Szczecin, northwest Poland, was sailing his 2,000-tonne ship, the Jork, from Lübeck in Germany to the port of New Holland, North Lincolnshire, on August 4, when the crash happened.

After taking control from his chief officer, he had been told to alter the ship’s course but did not do so correctly. Krakowski was looking at a computer screen when he should have been keeping watch from the bridge of his vessel. While filling out documents on his PC, he did not see the giant platform behind him.

When Krakowski finally glanced over his shoulder the unmanned platform was only 100 metres away – and a collision was inevitable. He tried to alter the ship’s course, but it hit the structure with a glancing blow.

Stuart Lody, for the prosecution, said: “The defendant’s action after colliding with the platform was not one you would expect of a master of a ship. It would seem that in his shock, and no doubt horror, at what had happened, he helped himself to a drink of vodka that was in a locked box.”

Mr Lody said that while other crew members reacted to the incident Krakowski remained passive on the bridge. “He didn’t react. He said he would stay and go down with the ship.”

As the ship started to list, the actions of the chief officer, which were described as “only just short of heroic”, saved the lives of the six crew members. While the crew boarded a liferaft, Krakowski responded by continuing to drink. He eventually decided to attach himself to a lifebuoy and jumped into the waves – but forgot to release the cord and had to be cut free.

The Jork sank a day later.

When Krakowski was breath-tested on shore he was found to be two and a half times over the limit. He said that he had begun drinking only after the crash, but that he had drunk three bottles of beer with his lunch several hours earlier.

Krakowski admitted breaching the Transport Safety Act 2003 by being master of a ship with excess alcohol in his breath – the limit is the same as for drivers. He also pleaded guilty to breaching the installation safety zone around the gas platform, in contravention of the Petroleum Act 1987.

Jailing him yesterday, the judge said that the incident was “a breathtaking set of events” and it was fortunate that no one was killed. Judge John Milmo, QC, said at Lincoln Crown Court: “A master’s reluctance to leave his ship might, in some circumstances, have been seen to be heroic. Here it indicates either drunken stupidity or the realisation of the consequences of what you had done. It is clear that your career has gone.”

Allan Mainds, in mitigation, said that Krakowski was “genuinely remorseful” about his actions. “It is hard to imagine the career of a man going in one moment. In the mind of a master mariner the loss of your ship is the loss of everything,” he said.

“It’s not just the loss of his career, but he has remorse for what has taken place, the loss to the company that owns the vessel, the huge loss of gas [production] and the disaster for the crew. His bizarre behaviour was completely out of character. His world has collapsed about him, and it is his own fault.”

The platform remains out of operation, losing £615,000 a month in revenue. Work cannot start on repairs until April at the earliest.

The Health and Safety Executive and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, which were involved in a joint investigation with police into the case, said that they were pleased with the length of sentence.

Captain Andrew Phillips, of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency enforcement unit, said: “This asserts that being in charge of a vessel while under the influence of alcohol is dangerous and won’t be tolerated. The courts have backed this up today.

“Incidents like this are extremely rare. It was a clear and sunny day, and there was no excuse for what happened. The fact that no one was killed is no mitigation.”

Drink and be damned

— Zbigniew Krakowski sinks the Jork, after crashing it into a gas platform in the North Sea on August 4

— The skipper of a tugboat was jailed for eight months last year after he ran his boat aground at full speed. Peter Leask was more than three times over the alcohol limit. The resultant oil spill in Scotland cost £3 million

— Three amateur sailors ran aground at Ayr beach in Scotland in 2005. One had already fallen overboard and had to swim to shore because he was too drunk to clamber back on deck. When the emergency services arrived the sailors refused medical help, opting to abandon their yacht and head to the pub

— Captain Richard Harwell, a pilot for Virgin Atlantic, was hauled from the cockpit of a Boeing 747 minutes before take-off in 2003. Ground staff had tipped off the authorities after smelling alcohol on his breath. He was jailed for 60 days

— In 1994 it was reported that the captain and co-pilot of a China Airlines plane that crashed in Japan, killing 264 people, appeared to have drunk alcohol during, or shortly before, the flight

— Graham Barnes, from Kent, a driver of a goods train, caused £2.5 million of damage to a railway station in 1994 after drinking the equivalent of almost a bottle of vodka. He was jailed for 12 months

Source: Yahoo, Times database

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