“Relatively low” oil levels on the Viking Sky triggered the cruise ship’s engines issues over the weekend off the coast of Norway, an official said Wednesday. The vessel – which had more than 1,300 passengers and crew members on board – signaled for help on Saturday after its engines cut out amid stormy weather. The “direct cause” of the ship’s problems was an insufficient amount of lubricating oil reaching its engines, Lars Alvestad, the acting director general of the Norwegian Maritime Authority, said, according to The Associated Press. CRUISE SHIP STRANDED OFF NORWAY’S COAST REACHES PORT AFTER HARROWING HELICOPTER RESCUES “The heavy seas probably caused movements in the tanks so large that the supply to the lubricating oil pumps stopped,” Alvestad said. “This triggered an alarm indicating a low level of lubrication oil, which in turn, shortly thereafter, caused an automatic shutdown of the engines.” The Viking Sky managed to drop anchor in a bay, allowing responders to begin the evacuation. Five helicopters were used to individually airlift passengers off the ship, as rough conditions ruled out evacuations by boat. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP The rescue operation ended Sunday when the engines restarted after 479 passengers had been airlifted to land. The ship traveled under its own power to a Norwegian port with nearly 900 passengers and crew members remaining onboard. The Viking Sky “suffered power 'blackout' in challenging weather conditions,” Alvestad said, adding that the ship’s low oil levels were still “within set limits.” The Associated Press contributed to this report.<doc-sep>It was carrying 1,373 passengers and crew members when the engines stopped and the ship began rocking violently. Helicopters took passengers off one-by-one as the winds whipped and waves up to 26-feet high crashed into the ship.<doc-sep>A Viking cruise ship needed to be evacuated over the weekend as engine trouble and stormy weather caused the ship to take on water and endanger the 1,373 passengers and crew aboard. What played out was a chaotic 48-hour nightmare. All the important details have yet to emerge about what happened on the Viking Sky cruise ship that carried 1,373 passengers and crew, like why the ship was traveling in dangerous weather, and Norway officials have begun investigating. We now know that low oil levels caused the engine to fail. Accounts from passengers, a crew member and officials have provided further details as to how it all unfolded. Here's everything we know so far about the Viking Sky cruise incident: What was the Viking Sky's plan? The Viking Sky, a vessel with gross tonnage of 47,800, was on a 12-day trip that began March 14 in the western Norwegian city of Bergen, according to cruisemapper.com. The ship was visiting the Norwegian towns and cities of Narvik, Alta, Tromso, Bodo and Stavanger before its scheduled arrival Tuesday in the London-area port of Tilbury on the River Thames. The ship started listing dangerously The Viking Sky sailed from the northern city of Tromso bound over the weekend for Stavanger in southern Norway when the ship began struggling with engine failure, started listing dangerously, then took in water. Norwegian media reported gusts up to 43 mph and waves over 26 feet. According to a crew member's account, exclusive to USA TODAY, the ship's four engines began shutting down in the midst of a storm that started late Friday. . The crew member requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. More on our exclusive:Crew member recounts what happened on that stranded, storm-tossed Viking Sky cruise ship The crisis began Saturday morning. As the ship drifted without power, the crew threw out anchors to keep it in place, fearing it would be smashed on treacherous offshore rocks. The crew member said the ship started to list, and the crew rushed to grab life jackets and distribute them to the passengers, some of them elderly. Cellphone footage from the ship shows furniture sliding across rooms as the boat rocks. "Everything was broken: plates, glasses, furniture," the crew member said. He said he saw a heavy grand piano go flying upside down inside a lounge. Carolyn Savikas of Pennsylvania described the terror aboard the Viking Sky to Norway's VG newspaper, saying she heard a "terrible crash," after which the ship rocked, and water raced in. "We were in the restaurant when a really huge wave came and shattered a door and flooded the entire restaurant," she said. "All I saw were bones, arms, water and tables. It was like the Titanic – just like the pictures you have seen from the Titanic." Although the crew member described the crew as well-trained for emergencies, he said he called his family at one point when the Wi-Fi was working "to say goodbye. I was thinking it was going to sink when we listed." What first reports looked like:Cruise ship off Norway issues mayday, begins evacuating 1,300 passengers and crew Passengers took to social media and have given interviews about what they were witnessing onboard as they waited to be rescued. Alexus Sheppard posted a video on Twitter of severe tilting due to the rough waters. "We're waiting for evacuation by helicopter," she wrote with the hashtags #VikingSky and #Mayday. "You could feel the ship climbing the waves and then just plummeting on the other side. Waves were rocking the sides of the ship too, and it was kind of pitching back and forth as well," Jamey Kennedy, 64, of Clinton, Tennessee, said. 'This can't be real':'This can't be real': Tennessee couple rescued from Viking Sky cruise ship in dramatic airlift How the Viking Sky rescue mission developed After the order to evacuate came, rescuers worked all night Saturday and into Sunday to airlift more than 400 passengers (about half the total) to shore by a fleet of five helicopters flying in the dark, slowly winching people up one-by-one from the heaving ship as the waves crashed and the winds shrieked. Despite the danger, the crew member said some passengers rushed to be airlifted, fearing the ship would sink before rescue. To get to the life jackets, the crew member said employees had to open doors onto open decks and into the wind and form human chains to distribute the life jackets while the ship was leaning perilously close to the frigid water below. Those involved in the rescue mission hadn't experienced a rescue this intense before. The CHC, a helicopter service, was called to assist the rescue effort at 2 p.m. local time on Saturday. The company's mission involved 12 pilots, seven rescue swimmers, six hoist operators, two ground support engineers and a system operator. By the numbers:Five helicopters, 28 rescuers, 464 saved: Inside the Viking Sky cruise ship rescue Its first helicopter arrived within 30 minutes after being called, and a second one later joined to assist. "The two helicopters worked seamlessly together in a rescue pattern that ensured one aircraft was hoisting passengers at all times," according to a post on CHC's website. "During each mission, 15 to 20 passengers were hoisted and subsequently transported to safety." Two more CHC aircraft were later sent to support the evacuations, and a fifth government-contracted aircraft arrived, as well. A total of 464 passengers were lifted off the cruise ship, per CHC's latest numbers. Ship makes it to safety The ship, aided by tow vessels, finally limped into the Norwegian port of Molde on Sunday, freeing the remaining 436 passengers and crew of 458. Mission complete:Cruise ship from Norway reaches port with remaining passengers after mayday, air rescues "All passengers and crew are safe, and passengers will be flying home starting tonight," the cruise line said in a statement on its website Sunday at 4:30 p.m. Norwegian time. "Throughout all of this, our first priority was for the safety and well-being of our passengers and our crew.<doc-sep>COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — The Norwegian pilot on the cruise ship carrying more than 1,300 people that was caught in a hefty storm off the coast of Norway said Tuesday the situation worsened when engine problems appeared. Inge Lockert told the Vesteraalen newspaper that "everything went as it should until we got engine problems." "It was a very big team effort," he told the daily. "When we got the engine running again, we realized we were going to save ourselves." Lockert did not reply to requests for comment by The Associated Press. The ship, Viking Sky, made a mayday call Saturday afternoon after the engine failures. Five helicopters winched off 479 passengers, and the airlift evacuation went well into Sunday. The operation was halted later Sunday when the ship's engines restarted and the vessel limped into a nearby port with the nearly 900 passengers and crew remaining onboard. A total of 36 people was admitted in local hospitals and as of Tuesday, one person was in critical but stable condition in an intensive care ward. Seven others were expected to be discharged later Tuesday, hospital officials said. Lockert was one of two pilots from the Norwegian Coastal Administration who boarded the ship on Saturday to help the crew take the ship into port, the Vesteraalen daily said. Only Lockert has spoken publicly. Bengt-Owe Gustafsson, the Viking Sky's Finnish captain, told Finnish tabloid Iltalehti Tuesday that the vessel began to drift in the storm when it suddenly experienced engine problems. "I'm happy that no-one got seriously injured. Things could've been much worse," he told the paper. The report said Gustafsson had twenty years' experience in the cruise shipping industry, including with the Disney Cruise Line. He added that the storm badly damaged the ship's interiors "so there's lots of work for us." Norwegian authorities were currently aboard the vessel probing the weekend's events, he said. On Monday, Norwegian officials said they have opened an investigation into the ordeal. The ship was on a 12-day cruise along Norway's coast before its scheduled arrival Tuesday in Britain. The passengers were mostly an English-speaking mix of American, British, Canadian, New Zealand and Australian citizens.<doc-sep>
A cruise ship that was the focus of a daring rescue operation off Norway’s frigid North Sea coast became disabled because its engines didn’t have enough lubricating oil, the country’s top maritime official said Wednesday. Low oil levels were the “direct cause” of the engine failure that stranded the ship during a storm Saturday, said Lars Alvestad, the acting director general of the Norwegian Maritime Authority. Sensors detected the oil shortage and automatically shut down the Viking Sky’s engines to prevent a breakdown, he said. The ship’s harrowing weekend ordeal injured dozens of people, including 36 who were admitted to hospitals. Four people from the ship remained hospitalized Wednesday, including one being treated in an intensive care ward in critical but stable condition, Norwegian health officials said. Alvestad said the amount of oil was “relatively low” but still “within set limits” as the Viking Sky neared Hustadvika, a shallow area known for shipwrecks that has many reefs but no larger islands to offer boats shelter from pounding waves. “The heavy seas probably caused movements in the tanks so large that the supply to the lubricating oil pumps stopped,” Alvestad said during a news conference. “This triggered an alarm indicating a low level of lubrication oil, which in turn, shortly thereafter, caused an automatic shutdown of the engines.” Viking Sky “suffered power ‘blackout’ in challenging weather conditions,” he said. The ship’s operator, Viking Ocean Cruises, said it welcomed “the prompt and efficient investigation” of the weekend emergency and accepted the findings. “We have inspected the [oil] levels on all our sister ships and are now revising our procedures to ensure that this issue could not be repeated,” the company said in a statement. The Viking Sky ended up in a dangerous situation when the engines stopped Saturday. With the ship carrying 1,373 passengers and crew members rocking violently, the crew sent out a mayday call. Passengers would recall a large wave crashing through glass doors and knocking people across the floor of an area where they were instructed to gather as a muster point. The crew anchored the Viking Sky in a bay as it came close to hitting rocks, and the airlift to get passengers off the ship began. Five helicopters winched passengers off one by one as winds howled in the dark of night. Waves up to 26 feet high were smacking into the ship, ruling out an evacuation by boat. The rescue operation ended Sunday when the engines restarted, after 479 passengers had been airlifted to land. The ship traveled under its own power to a Norwegian port with nearly 900 passengers and crew members remaining on board. The ship was on a 12-day cruise along Norway’s coast before its scheduled arrival Tuesday in Britain. The passengers were mostly an English-speaking mix of American, British, Canadian, New Zealand and Australian citizens. Alvestad said his agency has issued a new safety notice about crews making sure boats have a continuous supply of lubricating oil to engines and other critical systems in poor weather conditions. The Viking Sky was being towed to a shipyard in another port on Wednesday for repairs.