The ferry crew forgot about the passengers!

An incredible adventure was prepared for several dozen passengers by the crew of the German company TT-Line, sailing from Trelleborg in Sweden to Świnoujście on Friday evening. When the ferry arrived at its destination, those responsible for unloading and loading forgot to empty the lower deck, and the passengers were locked there and forgotten. They almost sailed back to Trelleborg.

The ferry departed at 4 p.m. from Trelleborg. Cars carrying families with small children and disabled people were lined up in a separate queue at the terminal to be the first to board the ferry. They were directed to the lower deck no. 1, at the very bottom of the ship. As it turned out later, this deck is not normally used for transporting vehicles, it is used as a kind of warehouse, where there were forklifts, beer barrels, and even pallets, including sodium hypochlorite solution. This time, the deck was also used for transporting cars, because there were probably an exceptionally large number of them to be transported.

Deck 1 was filled with cars, and then the passengers were taken to the upper decks by a freight elevator(!), where they spent the cruise. About an hour before reaching the port, passengers were instructed over loudspeakers to prepare to leave the ferry and go to the decks where their vehicles were parked. Passengers in cars parked on the lowest level were again taken to the bottom of the ship by a freight elevator. They waited calmly for the exit ramp to be lowered, knowing that this time they would be the last to leave, because cars from the upper decks had to leave first.

This is how Ms Maja Perebeinis, travelling with her partner and two small children (including a two-month-old daughter), describes the subsequent events.

– At first, nothing worried us. We could hear the engine running, the ferry docked in Świnoujście and we could hear the sounds of cars driving on the decks above us, we were calmly waiting for the ramp to be lowered and the signal to leave. But at some point it went quiet and no one was interested in us. What's worse, the ventilation on our deck was turned off. It slowly began to dawn on us that something was wrong. People got out of their cars, we looked around us. Some forklifts, beer barrels, various pallets, including containers with sodium hypochlorite, simply the on-board warehouse. No escape routes. We tried to get to the elevator, but to use it, you had to have some kind of chip or know the codes. What's worse, it became stuffy, the ventilation was not working. Suddenly we heard the sounds of cars entering the ferry. We realized that we were cut off from the world, and the people responsible for the deployment of vehicles had simply forgotten about us. No attempts to get the crew's attention were successful, even though there were surveillance cameras on our deck. Apparently no one was looking at the monitors.

It dawned on us that if we didn't act effectively, we'd sail back to Trelleborg, in a hold with no emergency exit or ventilation, no toilets, and no drinking water. One of the gentlemen noticed the technical stairs leading up, went up them, and managed to make contact with someone from the crew.

And so a scandal ensued, the ferry was loaded and ready to sail, meanwhile the vehicles blocking our departure had to be brought to the quay, the drivers of which were already in their cabins or in the buffet, the search for them took quite a long time.

The ventilation was turned on again, and we could breathe normally again. A crew member came down to us in the elevator, trying to calm down the clearly nervous passengers. Bottled water was brought to us. Someone asked for the identity of the officer responsible for this affair. The name was not mentioned, but the sailor said: "he won't have the opportunity to make such a mistake again."

Finally, the ramp was lowered and the cars trapped on the lower deck were able to leave the ferry. Their passengers arrived home with a delay of over two hours. Mrs. Maja arrived in Goleniów at 3 a.m. instead of 1 a.m., with children crying from exhaustion. Of course, the ferry from Świnoujście also sailed with a huge delay.

It seems that compensation for the unlucky passengers cannot be just a bottle of free water. Mrs. Maja demands a refund of travel costs and an apology from TT-Line, and she also intends to notify the appropriate bodies supervising maritime carriers about the incident. There is no doubt that there has been a serious violation of travel safety regulations: passengers are not allowed to be transported in a chemical warehouse, without providing access to evacuation routes, without ventilation and without contact with the ferry crew. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but stress in such circumstances can have fatal consequences.

We tried to contact the TT-Line spokesperson. Unfortunately, their website only has an email address, and no one responded to the email on Saturday or Sunday. An attempt to contact the company by phone was also unsuccessful. Holiday weekend!

The subject will of course continue, the injured parties will probably file complaints and demand accountability from those who were at fault. And we are still waiting for contact from the TT-line spokesperson and for explanations. ©℗

Cezary MARTYNIUK