Seventy-four people. Six urns. Both ships had pilots who knew the waterway

Emergencies and Natural Disasters · Sep 30, 2026 · 20m

Seventy-four people. Six urns. Both ships had pilots who knew the waterway

A pre-dawn collision in dense fog left seventy-four people dead and only six urns lowered into communal graves - yet both ships carried Argentine pilots who knew the Punta Indio Channel intimately. How did a routine port-to-port passing fail in a corridor designed for exactly that maneuver, and why did three investigations produce no criminal convictions?

In this episode, we recount the facts of the Royston Grange and Tien Chee collision, describe the ships, their crews and cargo, and follow the sequence that turned…