Lessons learnt: Avoid over- reliance on ECDIS for route monitoring
Lessons from UK MAIB's Marine Accident Reports The UK MAIB has recently issued the first Safety Digest for this year which includes lessons learnt from maritime accidents.One case draws the attention on checking the passage plan without rely only on ECDIS and ensuring that navigational equipment is effectiveThe AccidentOn a calm and clear night a modern, well equipped tanker was heading through a busy coastal traffic separation scheme. To the OOW and lookout, everything on the bridge seemed normal. The OOW was sitting in the bridge chair, where he could see the radar display and the ship's ECDIS. He was following the route shown on the ECDIS display and he adjusted the ship's heading whenever necessary to keep on track.Unexpectedly, the ship's speed reduced to zero and soon afterwards an engineering alarm sounded. Assessing that there was a problem with propulsion, the OOW phoned the second engineer and asked him to check the engines.The second engineer called the bridge back and confirmed that power was available on the starboard engine, so the OOW applied power using the starboard control lever. But the ship still did not move. The OOW also called the captain to explain that propulsion had failed in ...
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