In latest edition of its Safety Digest, the UK MAIB describes a case of fire in the crew mess room of a fishing vessel that was secured alongside in port. The three crew who were sleeping onboard escaped without injury, but the vessel was extensively damaged. The investigation identified that electrical failure was the key cause.
While a coastal Ro-Ro passenger vessel was at berth, it was using a auxiliary boiler to provide onboard accommodation heating, while the engines were not operating. After the boiler began working, fire broke out near the boiler, caused by a leak. The engineers quickly shut the boiler down and put the fire out with a foam fire extinguisher.
April 20th marks the 8th year since the greatest marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry: The Deepwater Horizon explosion is an industrial disaster that began on 20 April 2010, in the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in 11 deaths, 17 injuries and a discharge of about 4.9 million barrels of oil into the sea, leaving a heavy legacy in the safety history of oil and gas industry.
While the master focused on recovering the boats, L Austral inadvertently entered a 300-metre unauthorised zone, which was not permitted to enter and struck an uncharted rock. The hull was pierced and an empty void space was flooded. The Transport Accident Investigation Commission issued an investigation report.
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the sinking of the RoRo ferry ‘TEV Wahine’, New Zealand’s worst maritime disaster in modern times, Maritime NZ shared what has changed with respect to safety. The tragedy helped change international maritime safety conventions and standards.
In UK Club’s latest ‘Lessons Learned’ publication, Capt. David Nichol presented and analyzed a fall of a duty engineer, during a routine task onboard a container ship. The incident highlighted issues regarding the necessity of using intermediate guard rails when working aloft, as well as how seaway conditions can impact such tasks.
In its latest Safety Digest, UK MAIB analyzed a collision between two rigid-hulled inflatable boats, after a windsurfing race, which caused four people to fall overboard. According to MAIB, overconfidence on the boats’ handling was critical to the accident, while the fact that everyone was wearing life-saving equipment was vital to prevent loss of life.
The International Maritime Pilots Association conducted a Pilot Ladder Safety providing detailed information regarding the results they have concluded in.
For a Maritime Pilot, embarking and disembarking a ship is a dangerous task. The method of operation has changed very little over the years, and a large percentage of vessels still do not comply with standards for those arrangements.
USCG issued a safety alert to inform operators of the role that the main propulsion lube oil system was found to have played in the El Faro casualty, recommending that ship engineers review the operational procedures and limitations of vital propulsion machinery, and verify compliance with SOLAS, Class, and regulatory standards.
The UK MAIB presented a submarine’s hit into a fishing vessel’s gear, which put the fishermen’s life at great risk. UK MAIB emphasized that the responsibility for collision avoidance between a dived submarine and any other vessel rests entirely with the submarine’s command team. In this case, the crew misinterpreted the noise of the fishing vessels as a noise coming from a merchant ship.
