Overloading Caused The Philippine Ferry Sinking, Killing 51 People, Probe Reveals

The RORO passenger ferry MV Trisha Kerstin 3 sank near Basilan province in the southern Philippines, drowning 51 people while 27 remain missing. Around 316 people were rescued.

The cause of the incident which happened on January 26, 2026, is stated as overloading.

The triple-decker vessel went down on the route where 31 people died in a 2023 fire onboard another ferry, which was also owned by Aleson Shipping Lines.

Transportation Secretary Giovanni Lopez talked of several safety violations while announcing charges against the company, stating that vehicles were not weighed before they were loaded onto the ferry.

Officials from the Coast Guard, the Transportation Department and the Maritime Authority of the Philippines conducted a press briefing about the incident, revealing key findings from the investigation.

They unanimously agreed that trucks and motorcycles did not pass through the weighing station. They highlighted that cargo might have shifted inside the vessel.

Lopez added that there are high chances that most ferries in the island nation are sailing like this.

Reiniel Pascual, an investigator for the country’s maritime authority, confirmed passengers had received no instructions from the crew when the ship began to list.

No alarm went off, and no public address took place during the emergency before the ship capsized and sank.

Although around 368 people were onboard the vessel at the time of the incident, the exact number cannot be known since there was a mismatch between the ferry’s manifest and the actual passenger numbers, which beganto be known as more dead bodies began to be found.

Aquino Sajili, an attorney who survived the sinking, said that he expected more bodies to be found by divers.

The incident has revealed widespread corruption concerns with members of the Coast Guard, tasked with the safety of the citizens, allowing ships to leave ports overweight, as revealed in a separate investigation.

The Philippines has a long history of disasters involving the inter-island ferries, which are often old ships, sailing overweight, transporting the masses between the nation’s over 7000 islands.

Source: Maritime Shipping News