After the incident, the group of all 70 cadets were flown back to Germany and the Ministry of Defence decided their training on Gorch Fock was finished.
Hellmut Koenigshaus, parliament's liaison to the military, wrote that the cadets "did not want to go aloft after the painful loss of their comrade and others did not want to continue on the Gorch Fock", Germany's Bild reported.
According to a leaked parliamentary report, several cadets on the Gorch Fock were reluctant to climb the mast in November following the death of a 25-year-old student - known only as Sarah S - during a stop-over in Salvador de Bahia in Brazil.