– It rhymes badly that only one person is charged

The Chief of the Norwegian Navy opens the glass case, picks out a folded Norwegian flag and smells it.

– This is the flag that hung in Ingstad, he says, and carefully puts it back on the shelf.

A few days had passed since that fateful night, when the chief met the two mine divers on the dock at Haakonsvern.

They handed him the soaking wet flag. Now the frigate KNM “Helge Ingstad” was lying on the rocks in Øygarden outside Bergen.

– Then it smelled of salt water and diesel. It doesn’t smell like that anymore.

– It was a special moment, yes.

Can we be so open?

In recent weeks, the negotiations in the Ingstad trial have been about the distribution of responsibility between the various actors on the night when the warship KNM “Helge Ingstad” collided with the tanker “Sola TS”.

On Monday last week, it was the supreme commander of the Norwegian Navy, Rune Andersen, who took the witness stand.

– I ask myself the question… whether we can be so open if we end up with a single individual being convicted. Someone who did the best he could, but made mistakes, he says.

In the time after the accident, on the night of 8 November 2018, the Norwegian Navy spent a lot of resources trying to find out how it could have gone so wrong.

– Already on the same day as the accident, we decided that transparency was the way to go, and set aside a lot of resources to support the Accident Investigation Board and the police – so that we would all learn from the accident, Andersen says.

Punishment not helpful

Before the trial, the boss has been tight-lipped about what he thinks about the fact that only one man stands accused: the now 33-year-old warden at Ingstad.

Andersen now wonders whether society’s punitive logic can become an obstacle to the transparency he believes is needed – to prevent such accidents.

– Narrowing this down to a few decisive minutes, and the actions of one person, will not necessarily be helpful in our security work, he says to TV 2.

Andersen is simply “… worried that it might be counterproductive», as he said in court.

– I am of the opinion that punishment is not helpful in preventing and carrying out security work, he says.

Punishment or learning?

Andersen believes the discussion now stands between two principles: learning or punishment.

– In one logic, it is not crucial to punish an individual, who has done the best he can, but to find out why this happened and what we can do about it, explains Chief Sjø.

– The second is the criminal law track. I now feel that there is a discussion between which of these two measures has an effect and should be used.

But when something goes wrong, shouldn’t someone be punished?

– If the warden had done this on purpose, it would have been different. But here we have a watch commander who was alert, sharpened and ready to do a job… But made a mistake. It is then important to find the reasons for this, and how it could have been avoided.

– It rhymes very badly that there is only one person accused in this case, says Andersen.

The price of openness

Andersen is painfully aware that the Ingstad accident damaged the reputation of the Navy. Several witnesses throughout the trial have told of insults and taunts in the face of outsiders.

– The expectations of us are high – rightly so – and with such an accident, the fall in trust and reputation follows, says the rear admiral.

In order to build trust again, security work in the Navy became the most important. And although Andersen is adamant that humility and openness have been the right thing to do in this matter, he still has unanswered questions.

– I ask myself questions about the very large degree of openness we have shown to all the players who wanted to see us in the cards… he says.

– In such a process, we must also take into account the protection of our employees. It is probably a question of principle that I think will come later, and which I will have to spend some time thinking about.

Others’ mistakes are central

Several actors had the status of suspect during the police investigation of the accident. Both the pilot, the captain of “Sola TS” and the traffic manager of Fedje were charged, but all three cases were dismissed by the Attorney General.

It is therefore only the frigate’s watch commander who can be sentenced.

The defenders of the 33-year-old still believe that it is important to shed light on the mistakes of the other players, on the night of 8 November 2018.

– The actions of others will be central to the question of whether the watch commander acted negligently or not, says the watch commander’s defender, Christian Lundin.

– It is important that the court gains knowledge of what the underlying reasons for the wrongdoing were.

A heavy reminder

The Norwegian Navy itself believes that they have only concentrated on themselves and their own mistakes in the time since the accident.

On Thursday, however, Andersen stated to TV 2 that he believed that the other actors had chosen a different strategy, and had not been as open and humble as the Norwegian Navy.

– Now, four years after the accident, I would recommend that all actors take seriously the fact that a serious maritime accident has occurred, and where several people had important tasks, Andersen said.

– Everyone can learn something from this accident. It requires a certain degree of openness and humility on the part of all the actors who had a role in Hjeltefjorden that night.

The folded Ingstad flag – in the glass case in the office of the supreme leader of the Navy – is therefore an important reminder.

– It is obvious that the outcome of the trial will be of interest both to us and to others who carry out activities on the sea, says Andersen.