Overtired pilot jailed for fatal ferry crash

The pilot who passed out at the helm of the Staten Island ferry in New York before a fatal 2003 crash has been jailed for 18 months for manslaughter.

Assistant Capt Richard Smith gave an impassioned statement as he apologised to relatives and victims and recalled how he was too exhausted to have been working on the day of the crash in 2003 when 11 people died and dozens were injured.

“I will regret for the rest of my life that I did not just call in sick,” he said. “I was on the wheel. I was responsible. I stand ready to suffer the consequences.”

The city’s former ferry director, Patrick Ryan, also apologised to the families of the victims before he was sentenced to one year and a day in prison by the judge in New York. “For my part of this, I’m so terribly sorry,” he said.

The sentences stemmed from a gusty afternoon on New York Harbour in October 2003, when the Andrew J Barberi set out on a routine run from lower Manhattan with about 1,500 passengers and Smith alone in the wheelhouse.

As the vessel approached Staten Island, Smith – suffering from extreme fatigue and on painkillers – blacked out.

The ship drifted and hit a concrete maintenance pier at full speed, leaving dozens of passengers maimed and injured amid shredded metal and broken glass.

Smith, 57, who fled the accident and tried to kill himself by slashing his wrists, pleaded guilty in 2004 to negligent manslaughter.

Ryan, 53, pleaded guilty to related charges last year, admitting that he failed to enforce a rule requiring ferries be operated by two pilots whenever docking.

Family members of the victims – many of them in tears – asked the judge to impose lengthy sentences against Ryan and Smith for the crash.

“You are no better than a drunken driver,” Debra Palamero, another sister of a victim, told Smith.