Inspectors did not need to look for ship flaws, Hong Kong disaster probe told

South China Morning Post

23-05-2025

A former Marine Department official has maintained at a court inquest into
one of Hong Kong's deadliest maritime disasters that he and his colleagues were not obliged to detect structural flaws during regular ship inspections.
Retired principal ship surveyor Wong Chi-kin told the Coroner's Court on Friday that department staff would only inspect specific items on a vessel 'by intuition' without looking for possible defects.
Wong said ship inspectors would not have realised that the lack of a watertight door in between two underdeck rooms of the Lamma IV passenger ferry was a mistake which subsequently contributed to its rapid sinking after a collision with another vessel in 2012, as they would normally overlook matters not drawn to their attention before inspections.
'Formally, we only looked at what was required of us,' the witness said. 'It could be possible that [an inspector] found out [a structural defect] himself, but most of them would just walk past and ignore it.'
Wong also defended his decision to approve what appeared to be a self-contradictory drawing of the Lamma IV that indicated an access opening was to be introduced between two supposedly watertight hull compartments at the stern.
Instead, he blamed the Lamma IV's manufacturer, Cheoy Lee Shipyards, for failing to notify the department about opening the hatch without installing a watertight door, which violated official survey protocols.