"He takes it hard and is disappointed over the result," the officer's lawyer, Christian Lundin, told reporters. "He still thinks it is incorrect that he alone should take the blame for this accident."
The prosecution had asked for a four-month suspended jail sentence. Members of the 137-strong Ingstad crew had earlier described waking up in the middle of the night as water poured into their cabins and alarms went off as they tried in vain to save the ship, although they suffered only minor injuries.
Recordings of communication between the two vessels showed the slow-moving Sola several times asking the faster Ingstad to alter its course or face collision, but the request was declined by the navy ship, which feared getting too close to shore.
A commission investigating the collision said that the brightly lit Sola TS may have been difficult to distinguish from the nearby terminal from where it had set off, confusing the Ingstad crew.
A video recording from the tanker showed sparks flying as the two collided, tearing a gash in the side of the warship, which was later recycled as scrap metal. The tanker suffered only minor damage.
The collision exposed safety gaps in the Norwegian Navy,
including inadequate training and risk assessment systems. The
defence ministry later paid a fine of 10 million crowns.
($1 = 10.4882 Norwegian crowns)
(Reporting by Gwladys Fouche, editing by Terje Solsvik)
