Six Minutes, One Assumption, Five Lives: The Jabal Hafit Collision

At 2234, Someone Saw the Danger. At 2246, It Was Too Late.

On 4 March 2025, the bulk carrier Jabal Hafit was crossing the Arabian Sea in ballast, bound from Mumbai to Sohar. At 2234, the Third Officer and her lookout spotted a fishing vessel on the port side — visually and on radar. Six minutes later they finally acquired it on ARPA. The closest point of approach: 0.017 nautical miles. Effectively a direct hit.

The Third Officer's response was to assume the fishing vessel — later identified as the Indian-registered Nirali, crew of eight — would pass astern. She had seen fishing vessels behave this way before. She did not call the Master, despite Standing Orders requiring it well before this point. She hesitated to use the main engine because she wasn't sure she was allowed to. At 2246, Jabal Hafit struck Nirali's starboard quarter. The fishing vessel capsized. All eight crew went into the water in the dark, in rough seas, a long way from help.

What the Investigation Found

The Republic of the Marshall Islands Maritime Administrator's investigation concluded that neither vessel was COLREGS-compliant. Nirali, as the give-way vessel, never took action to keep clear. Jabal Hafit, as the stand-on vessel, was required to act as soon as it became apparent Nirali wasn't going to. The Third Officer didn't — because she had assumed, based on past encounters, that this fishing vessel would behave the way others had.

That assumption is what investigators call normalisation of deviance: a pattern that has worked before starts to feel like a rule, right up until it isn't one. The company's own Standing Orders required a minimum CPA of 3 nautical miles and TCPA of 30 minutes before fishing traffic — thresholds that were blown through without the Master ever being told.

The Second Failure

What makes this case unusual is what happened after the collision. The Third Officer and lookout both suspected they'd hit something and called the Master to the bridge. He arrived within two minutes. His assessment: no collision had occurred, because no impact sound had been heard from inside the enclosed bridge and no distress call had come over VHF. He suggested the lights they'd seen belonged to a “guardian boat” warning ships away from fishing gear. He ordered the vessel back onto its planned course.

Jabal Hafit did not stop. It did not search. By the time the searchlight was switched on, three minutes after the collision, the ship had already moved between 800 and 1,200 metres further away. Nirali's eight crew were in the water. Four clung to a floating hatch cover. A fifth was heard shouting for help and never found. It took until the next afternoon — roughly 18 hours later — for three survivors to be recovered, after a sister fishing vessel returned to search when Nirali failed to return to port. Two crew were later found dead. Three remain missing.

This Wasn't the First Warning

The RMI Maritime Administrator had issued a safety advisory on exactly this pattern — navigation watchkeeping near fishing vessels — in November 2023. Between 2020 and the Jabal Hafit collision, RMI-flagged ships colliding with fishing vessels had already cost 16 lives and five fishing vessels. This was a known, recurring failure mode, not a one-off.

Recommended Actions

The investigation's formal recommendations, and the preventive actions the company had already taken by the time the report was published:

1. Establish a procedure for monitoring and assessing the performance of navigation watchstanders on board Company-managed vessels
2. Implement external navigation audit verification to test the effectiveness and application of navigational watchkeeping standards
3. Review OOW familiarisation on the use of bridge navigation equipment, including the use of main engines for collision avoidance
4. (Already actioned by the Company) Send the 3/O and J3/O for Radar/ARPA and Bridge Resource Management training before their next vessel
5. (Already actioned) Run a fleet-wide BRM safety campaign specifically on “Calling the Master”
6. (Already actioned) Introduce pre-joining briefings for Masters where this incident is discussed directly

Human Element Analysis

How This Pattern Repeats

See How You'd Handle It

The scenario opens at 2234: a fishing vessel on your port bow, six minutes to a closing CPA of 0.017 NM. Do you call the Master now, wait for ARPA confirmation, or hold your assumption that it'll pass astern? Eight decision points follow, ending with the choice that separates this incident from a routine close-quarters situation.

What Every Watchkeeper Should Take From This

• A closing CPA that breaches your Standing Orders' minimum is not a judgement call — it's a trigger to call the Master, full stop
• “It's always passed clear before” is not a risk assessment — it's normalisation of deviance, and it kills people
• If you're the stand-on vessel and the give-way vessel isn't giving way, COLREGS Rule 17 requires you to act — waiting for certainty is waiting too long
• Not hearing an impact is not evidence a collision didn't happen — if there's any doubt, stop, search, and report
• A junior officer flashing a signal lamp from inside an enclosed bridge is not the same as using it where it can be seen

Related Reading

• Commodore Goodwill — another collision where small, hesitant actions weren't enough
• Enclosed Space Entry — another pattern where familiarity replaced procedure
• Safe Harbour — how to challenge a decision you believe is wrong, even from a senior officer