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Alaskan Ferry T-Bone’s Fish Processing Plant [INCIDENT VIDEO]

Alaskan Ferry T-Bone’s Fish Processing Plant [INCIDENT VIDEO]

Mike Schuler
Total Views: 210
May 22, 2012

Here is some video taken from onboard the Matanuska ferry at the moment it crashed into the Ocean Beauty Seafood dock and processing plant in Petersburg, Alaska on May 7.

While the cameraman did not visually get the impact on film, she did provide some interesting commentary and kept the camera rolling, catching the vessel backing off and revealing extensive damage to the dock and building.

No injuries were report onboard or on land, which is very lucky considering the 3,029gt ferry almost perfectly t-boned a second story office and fish processing plant at 1 pm on a Monday.  The M/V Matanuska suffered only minor damage and returned to service shortly thereafter.

The 408-foot Matanuska is one of 11 vessels in the Alaska State Ferry system.  It had 60 passengers onboard at the time.

The allision is currently under investigation.

"Oh my gosh!"

UDPATE: Insider reports are indicating that the Matanuska hit the dock after being forced to maneuver around another much smaller vessel:

Fishing boat coming out of the harbor supposedly cut off the Matanuska forcing the ferry to do drastic collision avoidence. The maneuver forced the ferry to over shoot the Petersburg dock. The ferry tried to turn 180 degrees to get to the dock. During that turn is when the Matanuska hit the dock. Tides were extra large that weekend with 5 knots of current on the stern. Petersburg is at the north end of Wrangell Narrows, a challenging waterway for the most experienced navigators.

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