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Ferry runs aground while helmsman "distracted by phone" [1]

['Rob Beschizza']

Date: 2025-11-20  

A ferry transporting 267 passengers and crew ran aground Wednesday en route from Jeju Island to Mokpo in South Korea. All the passengers were rescued and investigators have already found a suspect: the helmsman was on his phone.

A preliminary investigation found that "the officer responsible for steering had been looking at his mobile phone and allowed autopilot to take control in an area where the ship should have been manually operated", a Korea Coast Guard official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity. "As a result, the vessel missed the proper moment to change course, veered toward the uninhabited island and ran aground."

This amounted to "clear negligence," the same official told media. 27 people were hospitalized with minor injuries; the ship finally made it to Mokpo at 5:44 a.m., with just 21 crew on board.

Yonhap's Lee Heye-ah reports both the helmsman and the ship's first mate were charged with causing injury by gross negligence.

According to investigators, the first mate was looking at his phone as the 26,546-ton Queen Jenuvia II approached the uninhabited islet of Jok near Jangsan Island off the coast of Sinan, 366 kilometers south of Seoul, at around 8 p.m. Wednesday. The ferry should have turned some 1,600 meters away from the islet, but by the time the first mate realized, the vessel was already within 100 meters of Jok.

The ship (here's the datasheet) was not holed, but its operator has suspended all services until safety inspections are completed.

304 people died when the ferry MV Sewol sank en-route from Incheon to Jeju City in 2014, including 250 students from a single school. The slow response of the coast guard, the appalling death toll and negligence of crew and other officials led to a political crisis and several lengthy jail terms for crimes ranging from abandoning ship to homicide.

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