On Channel 5’s When Cruises Go Horribly Wrong, several cruise passengers shared their “terrifying” experience on the Viking Sky cruise ship in 2019. The ship was in a notoriously rough area off Norway’s west coast when the incident occurred.
Esther and Derek Browne had booked what they thought was the holiday of a lifetime to see the Northern Lights.
Meanwhile, fellow passengers Denise and Fiona had loved their trip to meet the indigenous Sami people of Scandinavia.
However, the passengers were in for a “horrendous” ordeal when their ship, the Viking Sky, ran into difficulties in Norway.
The cruise ship was eight days into its voyage when it entered one of the most dangerous stretches of sea along the Norwegian coast, the Hustadvika.
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According to a cruise expert, the Hustadvika is “well-known for causing shipwrecks” and captains often face tricky conditions.
Soon, water started to lash the decks as furniture slid across the room. Derek told viewers: “We hadn’t been in a sea as rough as this before, so it was alarming.”
The ship’s lights went out as all four of its engines failed, plunging the crew and passengers into darkness.
Esther said: “The lights went out and there was not a sound. I said to Derek ‘why can’t we hear the engines?’”
As the ship’s tables and chairs smashed into each other in the restaurant, the ship’s Mayday signal went out.
A Mayday signal is a distress signal used to alert the crew to a serious situation on a cruise ship.
One of the passengers said: “I felt utter fear. I couldn’t believe what was happening. It was terrifying. I thought it was the end.”
Although the crew managed to drop an anchor to stop the ship smashing into the rocks, the passengers’ problems were far from over.
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While the passengers were ordered to don their lifejacks and head to their “muster” or emergency stations, some were seated in an area where water was flooding in.
Passenger Fiona said: “Water came rushing in. My right leg had been very badly damaged and it started to swell really badly.”
The Viking Sky was unable to deploy its lifeboats due to the rough conditions leaving the passengers panicked.
Eventually, an emergency helicopter was launched and the worried passengers were winched from the ship’s deck. One of the passengers described the experience as “horrendous”.
Over 18 hours, the emergency team were able to bring around 500 passengers off the ship to dry land. Around noon the next day, conditions calmed and the ship could be brought back to dock.
However, Fiona was left with an injured leg and was just one of the passengers to require hospital treatment after the ordeal.
Following the findings of an incident report, the Accident Investigation Board Norway recommended: “All vessel owners and operators ensure that engine lubricating oil tank levels are maintained in accordance with engine manufacturer’s instructions and topped up in the event of poor weather being forecast.”
When Cruises Go Horribly Wrong aired on Channel 5 on Sunday March 19 at 4:10pm.
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