User58953268

12 hours ago, DCGuy64 said:

If what was reported is true, it's possible people complained about the long process of getting off the ship (by restricting it to just two people at a time), so the decision was made to allow many more people on the gangway at the same time. With this being the result. The cynic in me says the same people who might have said "this isn't fair, it's taking too long!" are now blaming NCL for the results of their own impatience.

 

 

Just to clarify, those comments about it taking hours to get off the ship were written about the first morning in Panama City. You know how it is when you first pull into port and it seems nearly everyone wants to get off the ship at the same time.

The gangway incident occurred the next day, the second day, around 1:30. (We had spent overnight docked at the pier in Panama City. We were there for two days.)

11 hours ago, luv2kroooz said:

No way! I don't know where blame resides because I wasn't there, but it would seem to me the passengers are pretty far down on that list. The gangway owner/operator and NCL have a basic responsibility to ensure operations are conducted in a safe manner. Safety is paramount. What a passenger may or may not want can never override safety.

 

This is the reason why Captains make the decision to divert away from tropical storms and hurricanes even though passengers may be upset by it. I can't imagine a situation where a captain would knowingly sacrifice safety of passengers and crew to meet passenger demands.

 

From the above post, it sounds like the port authority and NCL may have enforced the weight limit in the morning of the first day which resulted in safe operations, yet abandoned this measure in the afternoon of Day 2, when the incident occurred. I wonder if distance to the next port played into the need to accelerate embarkation on the afternoon of Day 2??

 

luv2kroooz, 

Agree that obviously.what frustrates passengers does not supersede safety concerns. 

I just wanted to offer a couple of clarifications / corrections: 

* We don’t know if there was a weight limit for the gangway. It is unknown (at least to me and others I’ve spoken to) how the 1-2 passenger limit was determined.

* There was no “rush” having to do with schedule/itinerary at the time the incident occurred. It was probably about 5 hours away from “all aboard” time.

Not only this, but everything had happened on schedule up to this point, and continued to operate on schedule afterwards. We pulled out on time later that evening. 

7 hours ago, BirdTravels said:

But the user5 did not see anything. Their story is all hearsay. And their is a ton of [inaccurate] assertions based on no fact.

 

For example, "the NCL staff was concerned enough about the gangway that they were only letting a small number of people go down the gangway at a time" asserts that NCL used a known dangerous gangway. A more plausible assertion could be "because the gangway was steep, they were only letting a small number of people go down the gangway at a time". This is what mainstream media does by taking bits of piece of information out of context and seam it together into an report to fit their purposes (a.k.a. fake news). 

BirdTravels, I appreciate that you value factual reporting and I at least somewhat understand where you’re coming from because I value and strive for this also. I apologize if I have drawn conclusions. 

To say the gangway was too steep to allow multiple passengers would also be a hypothesis/theory, right?

The gangway was steep, but to my knowledge what seemed more dangerous was the fact that it was unstable. The two ramp pieces of the gangway (not sure the correct terminology) had an issue at the merging point which made the whole thing unstable. It bounced/shook/wobbled even when just one person stepped out. People were nervous about it. That much I know.  

IT IS MOST CERTAINLY UNKNOWN (at least to me) THE EXTENT TO WHICH NCL KNEW THE DANGERS INVOLVED. Whether NCL made the call to limit the number of people walking on it because they knew it to be dangerous, or because it seemed like it could be dangerous is unknown. The only fact I know to be true is that they were only allowing 1-2 people on it at a time- When the first person neared the end, the second was allowed to step on. 

As I said previously, everyone I have spoken to who walked on it has the same story about it being rickety. 

Fast forward to the middle of the next day. For that point in time, it would only be speculation for me to say what changed. I do not have nor have I heard that piece of data. 

6 hours ago, grozzy1 said:

My unprofessional view in this is there's 3 factors in play here.

The gangway appears to be close to 10m in length. That's a long span to be unsupported.

Which leads to the engineering and construction needs to be spot on

Which leads to the safe load weight needs to be known and properly supervised.

IMO the people that need to answer questions are whoever built the gangway and the people monitoring the number of passengers on it.

These were my thoughts also. And certainly both Panama and NCL had failures here. 
 

When determining specific fault, and responsibility($$$), it takes time for a detailed investigation to be carried out..

I am currently on the Encore.
 

The incident has not been formally announced to passengers here, and to my knowledge neither to the crew (at large).  Because of this, it is extremely difficult for anyone to gather factual  information unless you were an eyewitness or at least close to the source.

I will only say what I know to be fact and not speculation. I speak based on what I personally witnessed and the eyewitnesses I personally spoke to.

Of course the news agencies don’t have many details—m many passengers and crew members don’t even know that it HAPPENED. (But word is spreading.)

I did not get off the ship at this port. On the second day, while eating lunch, I heard an announcement over the speakers (Code Alpha) and asked my friend what in the world that meant because I hadn’t ever heard an announcement like it. 

The gangway was Panama’s (not NCLs).

It was off deck 6, by the Q, such like “shof515” described above.

At least initially, on the morning of the first port day, the NCL staff was concerned enough about the gangway that they were only letting a small number of people go down the gangway at a time. (There was an extremely long line to get off the ship because this was the only exit, and they were restricting the number of people who could be on it at once.)

I have spoken with many people who told me the same thing- which was when they first stepped out, they thought something to the effect of hoping it was safe and could hold them, seeming rickety, kind of nervous about it, etc.

When it first collapsed, early afternoon on the second day, at least some of the people were actually hanging off of it holding on for dear life, until they finally couldn’t hold on any longer and slipped off, crashing onto the pavement below. It sounded horrific, and at least one of the eyewitnesses was hysterical. Later, another eyewitness said that several people had apparent bad injuries but two “were unresponsive.”

I do not know if anyone died. I have not spoken to anyone who knows whether anyone died or not.

After the accident, victims were immediately taken to the onboard medical center and ambulances were brought. 

There were also members of the Panama military, Panama police, and officers from the ship.

I did not see nor hear of anyone with only minor injuries. To my knowledge all victims had serious injuries and were hospitalized in Panama. (Again, unknown if any died. The ships do all have morgues.)
 

As other passengers were returning to the ship from touring, and getting off the shuttle bus, they used NCL gangways to get back on. You can see them in the photo.

I do know of one crew member that stayed behind in Panama with the injured. 

I personally saw crew members put lots and lots and lots of luggage onto elevators (I saw two FULL elevators of luggage). About an hour after this, the ship left. This was on time.

There have been no announcements about this incident or anything related to it since it happened, nor changes to the itinerary.
 

May you all never have to experience a tragedy like this, travel or otherwise 🙏