COMMUTERS on a ferry service to Portsmouth suffered cuts and bruises after it collided with a pontoon.
The Gosport ferry struck the Portsea Pontoon at 9.20am yesterday as it was coming alongside.
Passengers inside the ferry fell over after the collision, caused by over-steer and a glitch in the ferry’s controls.
The captain of the Portsmouth Queen acted quickly to reduce the impact. An engineer from the Gosport Ferry firm checked the craft, which has been in service since 1966.
Keith Edwards is general manager at the firm.
He said it was a rare occurrence in the 70,000 crossings that are made each year.
He said: ‘The captain did a very good job in minimising the impact.
‘Unfortunately there were a couple of very minor injuries.
‘It was an unfortunate glitch on the controls.
‘We checked everything and everything was fine, and the vessel carried on in service.
‘It demonstrates how well vessels here are maintained.’
He added that incidents like this occasionally happen in marine transport. No ambulances were called to the accident but the firm took the details of the injured passengers.
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