No injuries occurred
Danish Maritime Accident Investigation Board (DMAIB) issued a marine accident report about the fire the crew/supply vessel SEA GALEon 20 May 2014.
On the morning of 20 May 2014, the Danish crew/supply vessel SEA GALE had an engine room fire while engaged in the transfer of wind turbine technicians in the German Bight, the North Sea. All 12 passengers were evacuated, and the fire was extinguished with assistance from other ships in the vicinity. Neither the crew and passengers on board, nor assisting personnel were injured during the accident.
Conclusions
The accident happened when a fire occurred in the transition area between the starboard main engine room and the adjacent casing. The immediate, technical cause of the fire was likely a combination of insufficient insulation and possibly elevated exhaust gas temperatures from the propulsion engine due to insufficient ventilation. All passengers were evacuated to assisting vessels, and the fire was subsequently also extinguished with outside assistance.
The thinking underpinning the HSC Code is that ships are not self-assisted and thus depend on external assistance. This was also the case for SEA GALE, where the positive outcome of the events can be ascribed to the availability of assistance from other ships that supplied evacuation capacity, firefighters, equipment and pump capacity.
The crew faced a number of challenges:
- They did not have the equipment needed to effectively assess the extent and intensity of the fire in the casing,
- and the layout of the controls for the firefighting and engine systems caused an unintended blackout.
- The large amount of audible and visual alarms impaired the crewmembers handling of the emergency situation.
According to the HSC Code, it is not a requirement for ships of category A to carry firefighters outfits with breathing apparatuses. However, in this particular situation without having repiratory protective equipment, the crew felt hindered in their efforts to move freely and safely around the ship to assess and possibly extinguish the fire before it developed.
The uncertainty about the risk of a fire in a carbon composite structure introduced further stress factors in the decision making process, thus adding to the complexity of the situation: The crew did not know to which extent the smoke and fumes from the fire were toxic, there was uncertainty about the structural strength of the ship or how fast the fire might spread.
The HSC Code requirements imply that evacuation is the immediate response to emergency scenarios. In this context, it should be noted that there are also inherent risks in evacuating a ship where passengers are to be transferred to life rafts in open sea. This risk might make ship crews reluctant to immediately decide on evacuation before the seriousness of the situation is established. It is problematic to make a decision about evacuation based on uncertain circumstances, i.e. it is unknown to the crew whether a situation is serious enough to abandon the ship. The extremes are usually easy to establish, e.g. a small smouldering fire in a garbage bin does usually not lead to evacuation, whereas a visible serious engine room explosion usually does. All the situations in between may be difficult for ship crews to assess. Therefore, it is up to the crewmembers to assess when a situation is serious enough to abandon the ship.
While the crew did activate the water mist system, it only ran for approximately one minute because, in the process of shutting down the main engines, the power supply for the water mist was unintentionally cut off. The layout and operation of the systems was such that in an emergency they were prone to mistakes. In order to restart the engines after a stop, they must be reset, which could only be achieved by entering the emergency generator rooms. This would not have been an option under circumstances where the extent of a fire was not known. There was no back-up system for the water mist firefighting system.
The combination of the above factors left the crew of SEA GALE with only one option: To rely entirely on external assistance to extinguish the fire.
Further information may be found by reading DMAIB Marine Accident Report by clicking on the image below:
Source and Image Credit: DMAIB
