NewsHail
23 May 2025
A man in Norway woke up to find a big ship had crashed into his front yard.
The ship is 135 meters long (443 feet). It missed Johan Helberg’s house by just a few meters. This happened around 5:00 a.m. local time (3:00 a.m. GMT) on Thursday.
Mr. Helberg found out about the crash from his worried neighbor. The neighbor saw the ship coming straight to shore in Byneset, near Trondheim.
“The doorbell rang early, and I did not want to open it,” Mr. Helberg said on TV. “When I looked out the window, I was shocked to see a huge ship.”
He said, “I had to bend my neck to see the top of it. It was so strange.”
He added, “If the ship had been five meters more to the south, it would have hit my bedroom. I did not hear a thing.”
Neighbor Jostein Jorgensen said he woke up when he heard the ship coming fast. He ran to Mr. Helberg’s house.
“I thought he was already outside, but he was not. I rang the doorbell many times. No answer,” said Mr. Jorgensen.
“I called him on the phone and then I reached him,” he told TV.
The ship is called the NCL Salten. It flies the Cypriot flag. There were 16 people on board. The ship was going south-west through Trondheim Fjord to Orkanger when it went off course.
No one was hurt in the crash.
Police in Norway are looking into what caused the ship to crash.
“It is a big new neighbor, but it will leave soon,” Mr. Helberg said.
The boss of NCL said this was a “serious accident.” He said they are glad no one got hurt.
“We do not know why it happened. We wait for the police to finish their check,” said Bente Hetland, the managing director.
The ship had run aground once before in 2023 but freed itself.
