The Bahamas Maritime Authority issued the investigation report into the forward engine room fire which occurred on the 22nd October 2015 onboard Royal Caribbean cruise ship ‘Splendour of the Seas’. A total of 12 crewmembers were trapped in three workshops on deck 0 in the forward engine room during the course of the incident.
According to the report, the crew could not escape due to the intense heat and heavy smoke generated by the fire and remained trapped inside the respective compartments. Later, they all managed to escape and suffered minor smoke inhalation in the process.
When the fire broke out the vessel was on passage from the Greek ports of Mykonos to Argostoli. Due to the consequences of the fire the vessel diverted directly to Venice under its own power generated using the aft engine room propulsion units only.
Of the 2,626 passengers and crew onboard there were no injuries with the exception of 25 crew and 2 passengers who were treated for minor smoke inhalation.
The report says that the fire started 40 seconds after the engine had been stopped from the ECR, however, the exact source of ignition could not be determined. The primary causal factor which resulted in a fire was the failure of the fuel pump securing stud, which had not been tensioned correctly during fuel pump maintenance procedures.
Als0, it was reported that although an insufficient number of EEBD’s were available for the number of individuals trapped, those that did utilise the EEBD were not able to get them to work as designed. It is not known whether this was through inadequate training and understanding of equipment or the EEBD was faulty. Additionally, it remains unknown whether routine escape drills for crew members working in the forward engine room were accomplished regularly.
Find out more details by reading the investigation report herebelow
