They blamed a sandstorm, but the Taiwanese operator blamed the Japanese owner for it. And the Japanese operator agrees. Basically, we're not getting the real answer to this question. Also, the following:
> However, the chairman of Egypt's Suez Canal Authority said Saturday, without giving details, that weather conditions "were not the main reasons" for the grounding, and that "there may have been technical or human reasons," the BBC reported. An investigation is ongoing.
It does not work like that on the seas. Maritime legal conventions are are ratified by 99% countries on the globe. A shipowner is alwayd insured against these things, and the i surance company is also insured (reinsurance). So nobody will end up in a lifetime of serfdom because of this.
Shit hits the fan on the high seas all the time. We nornally don't hear about it in regular media.
Given that any human being crewing this ship or working in the Suez very likely lacks 59 billion dollars, the answer to this question is very probably "It doesn't matter."
Technically the pilot is in control of the ship and bears all liability at that time (or rather, the canal authority).
But it's an open secret the canal pilots are just slacking off, so a court may as well rule with the de facto situation and hold the captain and the operator responsible.
There is no way the only reason was because of the wind. I mean if because of strong wind boats become uncontrollable we would have this kind of event pretty frequently. So it is clearly something else, (which may have been emphasized by a strong wind, or have been triggered by a strong wind)
The short version I got is that a sand storm threw them slightly of course, while reacting they oversteered a bit, becoming too fast, which then lead to different fluid dynamic processes, once they were out of the deep water they couldn't do anything anymore.
