GARDAÍ HAVE released without charge a 36-year-old man after questioning him about an incident in which his companion was lost after their car plunged off a ferry during a short crossing in Cork harbour.
The man, a Polish national living in Passage West, was arrested at Cork University Hospital at about 8am yesterday for questioning about how the car moved forward and plunged into the water while travelling on the cross-river ferry from Glenbrook to Carrigaloe in Cork harbour.
The ferry, which can carry more than 20 vehicles, is a flat-platformed vessel with a bridge to the side and ramps at the front and rear which are raised during the crossing and lowered on to slipways at either shore to allow the vehicles drive on and off.
The man was arrested under section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act after he was discharged from hospital where he had been treated for hypothermia following his rescue by a local boatman when his car went into the water.
The incident happened at about 6.45pm on Sunday when the man went to drop his fellow Pole (28) to his home in Cobh after playing a game of indoor soccer in Passage West.
The ferry has been in operation since 1993 and can save up to 40 minutes’ driving time up to Cork city and through the Jack Lynch tunnel for those wishing to travel from one side of Cork harbour to the other.
While the exact circumstances of Sunday night’s incident are still under investigation by gardaí, it appears that the two men were last to board the ferry in the arrested man’s VW Polo and they drove up the centre lane to the front of the vessel.
The ferry was approximately half way across the channel when for some reason, the car moved forward on the vessel and over the ramp and a lowered barrier before entering the fast-flowing river channel.
Both men managed to get out of the car before it became submerged. The 36-year-old man managed to stay afloat while being swept downstream where he was rescued by local man John Geary, who had spotted the drama unfold and put to sea in his dinghy.
Meanwhile the emergency services launched a major search operation for the second man with a Naval Service RIB from nearby Haulbowline speeding to the scene where it was later joined by the Irish Coast Guard RIB from Crosshaven and an RNLI RIB from Crosshaven.
Ballycotton RNLI Lifeboat also joined the search as did the Irish Coastguard helicopter from Waterford while Irish Coast Guard teams from Guileen and Crosshaven, assisted by gardaí, combed the shoreline looking for the missing man.
The search resumed yesterday with Marine Institute’s survey ship Celtic Voyager carrying out sonar sweeps of the channel which is up to 20 metres deep in a bid to locate the missing car and recover the missing man.
A Naval Service spokesman said naval divers were being hampered by poor visibility of just one metre on the channel bed along with the fact that there was no exact location for where the car entered the water to enable them concentrate the search.
“The tide is very fast there, the channel is very deep and widens out very quickly so when we don’t have an exact location for the car to concentrate our search operation, it’s quite difficult,” he said.
Cross River Ferries last night issued a statement expressing their sympathies to the family of the missing man while stressing that it was “satisfied that safety procedures and regulations were adhered to” during the crossing.
The crossing usually takes just four minutes.