Demonstrating coordination and acting during a mass rescue operation
On June 1, a mass rescue simulation exercise using Transas Navigational simulator NTPRO 5000 took place within the International Maritime Mass Rescue Conference 2014 held by the International Maritime Rescue Federation (IMRF). The conference was hosted by the Swedish Sea Rescue Society (SSRS).
More than 100 participants gathered at simulator facilities of the Chalmers Universty of Technology (Sweden) and the Swedish Maritime Administration. Both organisations use the latest Transas navigational simulator NTPRO 5000. To run the exercise, both simulator facilities were interconnected on root level thus creating a large complex simulator consisting of five full mission bridges and two debriefing rooms. Main objective of the exercise was to demonstrate a methodology how to coordinate, communicate and act during a mass rescue operation.
The simulator bridges were manned by real captains and pilots with rescue professionals controling the VHFs for target ships and rescue centers. During the exercise, the delegates were invited to join the bridges or sit down in debriefing rooms where the exercise was monitored in real time on instructor monitors and on selective visual cameras on projector screens. Debrief was coordinated by the SSRS personnel.
Conference delegates were impressed by the detail and complexity of the simulation with many seeing this concept filling a gap in the training and preparation for mass rescue operations.
IMRF CEO Bruce Reid commented: “The simulation provided by Transas for the Mass rescue conference exceeded anything we had expected and provided a fantastic focus for the next two days of the conference. The ability to move between the five bridge simulations and gain the varying perspectives the skippers were dealing with, gave many of the shore based SAR practitioners attending the conference a better appreciation of the challenges MRO incidents pose on the water“.
Transas Marine International Managing Director Ralf Lehnert said: “We are very delighted to support such an important event and the crucial missions the rescue societies provide every day. A lot of our Transas staff have been at sea and we very much appreciate the “back-up” service if something is going wrong, which is the nature of human beings not being on its territory, which was originally planned to be land. Safety at sea is part of our corporate mission, since that’s why we name us Transas – Transport Safety Systems“.
Source: Transas
