Firms fined over fatal QM2 accident
Two companies were fined today over a gangway accident that killed 16 people on the world’s largest ocean liner, the Queen Mary 2, before its maiden voyage.
The walkway collapsed in November 2003 during visitors’ day at the shipyard in Saint-Nazaire in France weeks before the ship’s first trip.
The court said the company that built the ocean liner, Chantiers de l’Atlantique, and the company that built the walkway, Endel, each had to pay around £130,000 (€175,000).
Eight employees of the two companies were acquitted of manslaughter charges. The verdict followed two weeks of evidence in October by families of victims and employees of the companies that built the ship and the walkway.
