A ship ran aground in Norway and nearly crashed into a house. A crew member has been charged

Johan Helberg stands next to his house, with the container ship NCL Salten in the background, in the Trondheimsfjord, outside Byneset, in Trondheim, Norway, Thursday May 22, 2025. (Jan Langhaug/NTB Scanpix via AP)

OSLO, Norway — Norwegian prosecutors have charged a cargo ship’s second officer with negligent navigation after he allegedly fell asleep on duty and the vessel ran aground, narrowly missing crashing into a home.

The ship, the NCL Salten, ran aground shortly before 6 a.m. Thursday. No oil spills were reported, and none of the 16 people aboard was injured.

Johan Helberg told Norwegian broadcaster NRK that he’d slept through the whole thing and only woke up when a neighbour started ringing his doorbell. Images show the ship’s red and green bow just metres from Helberg’s house along the Trondheim Fjord’s coast.

The second officer, whose name was not made public, was the navigator on duty at the time of the grounding, prosecutor Kjetil Bruland Sørensen said in a statement.

Crews on Monday continued to take containers off the ship so it could be more easily removed from the area.

NCL, the shipping company, said it was co-operating with investigators.

The Associated Press