Cops: Crewman Was Sleeping as Cargo Ship Went Aground

UPDATE May 24, 2025 7:00 AM CDT

Johan Helberg was sleeping when a cargo ship ran aground in his yard, barely missing his home in Byneset, Norway. Apparently, the crewman on watch who was responsible for keeping the NCL Salten on course was snoozing as well, authorities now say, per the New York Times. "His explanation is that he fell asleep prior to the incident," says police prosecutor Kjetil Bruland Sorensen, adding that there are regulations that are supposed to keep this kind of thing from happening. Cops are still investigating whether the crewman was alone on the bridge at the time of the grounding. Per the BBC, the worker is said to be a Ukrainian national in his 30s who's been charged with negligent navigation. The ship, meanwhile, was still stuck in Helberg's yard as of Thursday evening.

May 23, 2025 8:19 AM CDT

A Norwegian man awoke to find that a cargo ship had run aground and narrowly missed crashing into his home along the Trondheim Fjord's coast. Johan Helberg told Norwegian broadcaster NRK that he'd slept through the whole thing and only woke up when a neighbor started ringing his doorbell, per the AP. "The doorbell rang at a time of day when I don't like to open," Helberg told TV2, per the BBC. He added, per the Guardian: "I went to the window and was quite astonished to see a big ship. I had to bend my neck to see the top of it. It was so unreal."

Images show the red and green bow of the 443-foot-long NCL Salten just yards from Helberg's house in Byneset. He told NRK the only damage to his property was to a heat pump's wire. Authorities say they received reports that the Cyprus-registered ship, which reportedly had 16 people on board, ran aground shortly before 6am local time on Thursday. No injuries or oil spills were reported.

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Efforts to refloat the ship—which ran aground once before, in 2023, but was able to break away on its own power—at high tide were unsuccessful on Thursday. Shipping company NCL said in a statement it was aware of police statements saying they had one suspect; the company said it was cooperating with the investigation. "It's a very bulky new neighbor, but it will soon go away," Helberg tells the BBC. He also observes to NRK that if the ship had hit about 15 feet further to the right, "it would have slid up the rocky cliff, and then my house would probably look quite different." More here from the neighbor who saw the whole thing go down. (More strange stuff stories.)