An unexpected incident occurred in the early morning hours of Friday, when the Greek Navy frigate “ELLI” ran aground in the sandy sea bottom off the island of Samothraki in the North-West Aegean Sea.
The incident occurred with the multinational military exercise PARMENION 2019 to be in its final stage.
Frigate ELLI ran aground at 3 o’ clock in the morning, while it was reportedly checking in the area of Kamariotissa of Samothraki ahead of the exercise part “commandos’ landing” on the island.
Procedures to detach the frigate from the embarrassing situation lasted until 7 o’ clock in the morning.
Nobody was injured, the frigate was not damaged.
The PARMENION program will proceed as scheduled.
There has been no official statement about the reasons of the incident.
As expected the issue sparked discussions in the Greek Navy, especially as the frigate ran aground amid the most important exercise of the Greek Armed Forces.
Former Chief of Navy, Antonis Antoniadis, suggested that the reason for the incident was either technical failure or human error. “The weather may have played a role, too,” he said.
Speaking to news website newsit, Antoniadis said that the Navy has all maps with shallow waters.
He added that an investigation will be conducted and most likely the captain would have to go.
The commander would pay the price “and rightly so, because even if he wasn’t on the bridge, as a commander he would be responsible even if he was at home,” Antoniadis stressed.
