Bogus Chief Officer

The chief engineer of a ship was airlifted to a hospital in the Arabian Gulf suffering from appendicitis. The ship manager had to replace him before the ship could sail. A chief engineer with impeccable references and qualifications was sent to the manager by a local crew agent and immediately flown to the ship. Two weeks later routine checks revealed that his references and certificates were forgeries. This caused the ship to be delayed for two days. The manager had to pay the cost of this delay, together with the costs of positioning a replacement chief engineer. The situation where an uncertified chief engineer was in charge of the engine room was commercially an extremely dangerous one. If an accident had occurred, the owner would have been in breach of the terms of his insurances, and the insurers could have refused to settle claims. The owner would then have had nowhere to look for reimbursement of his losses, except to the manager.