A New Zealand cruise ship hit the sea and sank because the crew accidentally left it on “autopilot,” an inquest has found.

A New Zealand navy ship ran aground near Samoa and sank because its crew accidentally left it on “autopilot,” a military investigation found on Friday.

Dozens of sailors were rescued from the HMNZS Manawanui in October after it hit a wall, burst into flames and sank south of Samoa's populous island of Upolu.

The HMNZS Manawanui was New Zealand's first ship lost since World War II, the BBC reported, and was one of nine ships in the country's fleet of small ships.

Manawanui had been sent to map the bottom of the ocean.

A military court on Friday found that the survey vessel was disrupted because “its pilot was not disengaged when it should have been.”

“Staying on autopilot resulted in the ship maintaining a course towards land, until it took off and eventually broke up.”

The crew realized that the ship had veered and tried to change course, believing that they had lost control due to “thruster control failure”.

But they forgot to check whether the autopilot was disengaged first, the court found.

Instead of moving away from the danger, the ship “began to accelerate towards the shore.”

“The exact cause of the grounding of the vessel was determined to be a series of human errors which meant that the pilot of the vessel was not terminated when it should have been,” Golding told reporters in Auckland on Friday. “The muscle memory from the person in control had to lean on that panel and check if the screen said autopilot or not.”

Defense Minister Judith Collins said the controversy “hit six soldiers.”

“It was a terrible day. The marines and the defense forces do not shy away from this,” Collins said. “It was very disappointing. But that's what happened.”

The shipwreck rested on a stable part of the rock 100 meters below the surface.

It was carrying 950 tonnes of diesel when it sank, prompting fears of an oil spill that could kill wildlife and contaminate important food sources.

The New Zealand Navy has previously stated that the large fuel tanks look sturdy.

Salvage crews were working to locate the fuel without a major leak.

No one died in this incident, although a number of sailors received minor injuries.

In the days following the incident, the BBC reported that social media users started trolling the female captain of the ship, saying that her gender was to blame. These spokesmen were criticized at the time by New Zealand's defense minister as “armchair managers.”

The sinking of the HMNZS Manawanui came just weeks after the end of the US Navy oil tanker serving the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group. scattered on the coast of Oman. At the time, US officials told CBS News national security correspondent Charlie D'Agata that the damage to the USNS Big Horn was severe enough to cause flooding of the ship but no injuries were reported.