In its latest monthly safety scenario, the Swedish Club describes an incident where a broken fuel valve above the auxiliary engines started spraying fuel oil over an exhaust pipe, causing a huge explosion and a fire in the engine room.
The incident
A vessel was lying alongside loading cargo. The Chief Officer called the engine control room (ECR) to ask the duty engineer to start an extra auxiliary engine so he could begin to ballast the vessel. The oiler answered the phone in the ECR and went to look for the Third Engineer to tell him to start the second auxiliary engine.
The Third Engineer called the Chief Officer and told him that the second auxiliary engine was online and that he could start the ballast operation. Ten minutes later a huge explosion was heard in the engine room. The Third Engineer could see flames and smoke coming from the auxiliary engines.
The Third Engineer escaped from the ECR and when he was outside the engine room, he broke the glass for the fire alarm and activated it. At the same time the vessel blacked out, but 15 seconds later the emergency generator kicked in and the power came back on. All engines were stopped.
The general alarm was sounded by the Master and all the crew were mustered. All fire dampers and fire doors for the engine room were closed, and the fire teams were suited up in firefighting gear and started boundary cooling the engine room and funnel.
The Master informed the VTS and the local fire brigade about the fire.
About ten minutes later the local fire brigade arrived. Both the vessel’s fire team and local fire fighters tried to enter the engine room, but there was too much smoke, so they did not proceed inside.
At this point it had been 40 minutes since the explosion and the Master could confirm that all the crew were accounted for.
The Master decided to release 40 cylinders of CO2 into the engine room. Half an hour later another 30 cylinders were released. The crew monitored the temperature of the engine room which was coming down. About an hour after the first CO2 was released, smoke stopped coming out of the funnel.
The following day the local fire fighters entered the engine room with full gear and confirmed that the fire had been extinguished.
Probable cause
In the investigation that followed it was discovered that a fuel valve had broken above the auxiliary engines and sprayed fuel oil over an exhaust pipe which caused the fire.
It is worth mentioning as per SOLAS regulations that there should be insulation on the exhaust pipe and that the valve should also be protected.
Many engine room fires are caused because of bad insulation. The cause is often linked to a previous maintenance job where the insulation has not been put back correctly, or it has been contaminated by oil.
Lessons learned
When discussing this case please consider that the actions taken at the time made sense for all involved. Do not only judge but also ask why you think these actions were taken and could this happen on your vessel?
- What were the immediate causes of this accident?
- Is there a risk that this kind of accident could happen on our vessels?
- How could this accident have been prevented?
- What sections of our SMS would have been breached if any?
- When maintenance has been completed do we inspect that the insulation is in place and not contaminated?
- How often do we have fire drills in the engine room, as this is generally where fires start?
- Are our firefighting drills effective enough to address the problems in this case?
One Thing , as a reader of the Incident , Fortunately it is happened on Shore, if the Same incident happened in the Middle Sea, ??? Missing A little work of Insulation on the Exhaust pipes, not Noticing it by the Engineers , there life will be at Risk, God’s Grace A major is made into a Minor!!!