Fish farm accident results in two deaths

The barge, moored permanently as a feed store beside salmon cages in the Rubha Garbh area of Loch Creran, north of Oban, is owned by Scottish Sea Farms.

According to the Aberdeen Press and Journal, police named the victims as Maarten Pieter Den Heijer, 30, and Robert MacDonald, 45. A third man, aged 42, was airlifted to hospital at Oban.

A joint investigation involving Strathclyde Police, the Health and Safety Executive and Strathclyde Fire and Rescue is trying to establish what caused Monday’s deaths.

Clyde Coastguard said the men went to look at some hydraulic pipes in a hold. When the first man went down he became unconscious almost immediately. An engineer went down but could feel himself starting to lapse out of consciousness, and came back up. A third man went down wearing a respiratory mask, but also became unconscious, the newspaper wrote.

One theory put forward by the coastguard is that, if the hold was rusty, the oxidisation process could have depleted oxygen levels.

Post-mortem examinations are being carried out and a report will be sent to the fiscal at Oban.