Crew member charged over ship that ran aground in Norway

The container ship NCL Salten almost hit Johan Helberg’s house (Jan Langhaug/NTB Scanpix via AP)

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 6am on Thursday morning. No oil spills were reported, and none of the 16 people aboard were injured.

Resident Johan Helberg told Norwegian broadcaster NRK that he had slept through the whole thing and only woke up when a neighbour started ringing his doorbell.

The ship ran aground in the Trondheimsfjord, Trondheim, Norway (Jan Langhaug/NTB via AP)

Images show the ship’s red and green bow a matter of feet away from Mr 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 Sorensen 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 cooperating with investigators.