Arrest warrant issued for heavy lift ship involved in incident at Ingalls

WLOX TV aired this image of the incident

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi has issued a warrant for the arrest of the heavy lift ship MV Hawk.

The MV Hawk was at the center of a March 29 incident in which, according to media reports, it slammed into a test barge at Ingalls Shipbuilding, pushing the barge into the newbuild destroyer USS Delbert Black (DDG 119).

The MV Hawk, which was delivering a Chinese built floating dry dock to the shipyard at the time of the incident, is owned by Offshore Heavy Transport of Oslo, Norway, and managed by Songa Shipmanagement.

The arrest warrant was issued Monday, April 15, in response to a civil complaint filed by Ingalls’ parent, Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII), against OHT Hawk AS, Offshore Heavy Transport AS, Songa Shipmanagement Ltd, and the MV Hawk,

In its complaint, HII asserts that as the MV Hawk approached the HII berth, it lost control, veered off course, and allided with HII’s test barge and the USS Delbert D. Black (DDG 119), causing significant damage to the test barge, the floating dry dock, HII’s wharf facilities and the destroyer’

According to the complaint, HII currently estimates its damages to be as follows: a) Damage and repair to the HII test barge and wharf facilities – $10.1 million dollars; b) Delay and disruption of HII’ s facilities $21.1 million dollars.

The complaint also asserts that HII has suffered additional damages due to the allision, which amounts will be proven at trial, and says the current damage estimates are for HII’s damages only and do not include the damage sustained by the U.S. Navy to repair allision damage to the USS Delbert D. Black, which HII estimates is approximately $30.9 million, plus additional delay and disruption damages the Navy may have sustained as a result of the allision.