IN Mike Merrit’s article regarding the remembrance service for the loss of the Iolaire this coming December ("Isle's service to mark ship disaster will now go online", The Herald, September 12), he states that "the cause of the disaster was never conclusively determined”. I would like to disagree with this.
At the end of the Fatal Accident Inquiry that was opened on February 10, 1919, the jury unanimously found that “the Officer in Charge on said occasion did not exercise sufficient prudence in approaching the harbour; that the boat did not slow down and that a look-out was not on duty at the time of the accident”.
Commander Mason and Lieutenant Cotter had never commanded a vessel into Stornoway at night, never mind the poor weather at the time, and the blame for the disaster must rest on the ignorance and neglect of the officers in charge regarding the proper course into the harbour at Stornoway.
Iain Macdonald,
28 Albany Apartments, Albany Street, Oban.
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