The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) released
Wednesday its full report on the sinking of the ‘El Faro’ cargo ship in October
2015, the deadliest shipping disaster involving a US-flagged vessel in more
than 30 years, confirming that the tragedy was attributable to the captain’s insufficient action.
The 790-foot, cargo
vessel, S.S. El Faro, en route from Jacksonville, Florida, to San Juan, Puerto
Rico, sank on 1 October 2015, in the Atlantic Ocean during Hurricane Joaquin,
taking the lives of all 33 aboard.
Probable
Causes
·
NTSB determines the captain’s insufficient action to avoid
Hurricane Joaquin, his failure to use the most current weather information, and
his late decision to muster the crew, as the main cause of the accident.
Contributing were:
·
Ineffective bridge resource management on board El Faro, which
included the captain’s failure to adequately consider officers’ suggestions.
·
Inadequacy of both TOTE’s oversight and its safety management
system.
·
Flooding in a cargo hold from an undetected open watertight
scuttle and damaged seawater piping;
·
Loss of propulsion due to low lube oil pressure to the main
engine resulting from a sustained list; and subsequent down flooding through
unsecured ventilation closures to the cargo holds.
·
Lack of an approved damage control plan that would have assisted
the crew in recognizing the severity of the vessel’s condition and in
responding to the emergency.
·
Lack of appropriate survival craft for the conditions.
The US Coast Guard also
released its Final Action Memo on El Faro in
late December, approving the findings of the Marine Board of Investigation,
concluding that the main cause of the casualty was the decision to navigate El
Faro too close to the path of Hurricane Joaquin.
Recommendations
NTSB advised USCG, among
others, to revise regulations to increase the minimum required propulsion and
critical athwartships machinery angles of inclination, to propose to IMO to
require that all watertight access doors and access hatch covers normally
closed at sea, that new cargo vessels be equipped and retrofitted with
bilge high-level alarms in all cargo holds, and that all cargo ships have
damage control plans and booklets onboard that meet current standards. USCG was
also recommended to publish policy guidance to approved maritime training
schools offering management-level training in advanced meteorology.
The owner company TOTE
was advised to establish standard operating procedures for heavy weather, to
ensure damage control plans and booklets onboard, to revise SMS and bridge
resource management programs, as well as provide expertised crew
trainings.
The NTSB made additional
safety recommendations to the Federal Communications Commission, NOAA, IACS,
ABS, and Furuno.
Explore more by reading
the full report:
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