How bad is the Cruise Industry for accidents/incidents

[Davyjonesrugrat]

http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1122954--costa-concordia-disaster-how-the-cruise-ship-industry-sails-under-the-radar

 

LONDON—The very public dispute between Captain Francesco Schettino and the owners of his stricken vessel is a symptom of lax regulation and supervision that can only add to pressure for the cruise line industry to be subjected to closer scrutiny.

The mudslinging over who decided the Costa Concordia should sail within 150 metres of the shoreline of an Italian island in a manoeuvre known as a “salute” to show the ship off has exposed wider concerns over how such vast ships should be controlled and how safe they really are.

“During the past two decades, cruise lines have maintained the best safety record in the travel industry,” the European Cruise Council reassured holidaymakers on Jan. 14 in response to the capsizing of the Costa Concordia in which at least 16 people died.

Research by Reuters news agency has revealed, however, that patchy safety data and poor accident reporting standards make it difficult to verify how safe the industry really is and impossible for members of the public to easily compare the relative safety standards of different operators.

The lack of a comprehensive, publicly available database of shipping accidents is just one symptom of a loosely regulated industry where international rules under the auspices of the United Nations are wide open to interpretation by national governments, operators and ship captains.

The reassurances given to cruise ship passengers in a second statement from the European Cruise Council on Jan. 16 that “all our member lines are subject to the highest safety standards around the world according to international maritime requirements” may raise some eyebrows.

The blame game between the captain and ship operator Costa Cruises — a unit of U.S. giant Carnival — over whose fault it was that he sailed so close to shore as to run aground and passenger criticism of emergency procedures have prompted questions over industry safety standards, particularly as there would have been many more casualties had the ship gone down on the high seas.

Adding to the growing debate, Franco Gabrielli, head of Italy’s Civil Protection authority which is coordinating the rescue operations, said earlier this month that a number of unregistered passengers may have been on board. Costa denied there were any stowaways on board.

Highlighting how open to interpretation international shipping rules are, Chapter 5 of the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea agreed in 1974 requires that member states ensure that “from the point of view of safety of life at sea, all ships shall be sufficiently and efficiently manned.” There are no agreed minimum staffing levels.

The UN-affiliated International Maritime Organization (IMO) did adopt additional guidelines for “minimum safe manning” in November 2011 but the principles are, in its own words, broad ones and put the onus on governments under whose flag the ships are sailing.

Rules on reporting accidents are also short on enforceable specifics.

The 1974 convention, for instance, only required governments to supply the IMO with “pertinent findings” from investigations in the wake of accidents and undertook that any reports or recommendations based on such filings would not disclose the identity or nationality of the ships concerned or apportion blame for any incident.

Guidelines on investigating and reporting casualties have been amended over the years but there’s still plenty of wiggle room. Under resolutions adopted in 1999, operators were told only that reports into incidents should be “distributed to relevant parties involved and should preferably be made public” while pooled information on casualties was to be made available in an electronic format to governments but not to the general public.

Even under revised harmonized reporting procedures published in a Maritime Safety Committee circular dated Dec. 18, 2008, governments are asked only to supply the IMO with “pertinent information” concerning the findings of investigations. The circular is characterized by words such as “requested,” “urged” and “invited”.

The result is that even the IMO’s own database of Marine Casualties and Incidents is incomplete.

Costa Concordia owner Carnival, for instance, outlines in its 2010 sustainability report details of an accident in which another member of the Costa Cruises fleet — the Costa Europa — collided with a pier while docking in the port of Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, causing a hole in the ship, killing three members of the crew and injuring four passengers.

This accident does not appear on the IMO database. Nor, in fact, does another incident outlined in the same Carnival report when on July 12, 2010 a diver inspecting its Holland America Line cruise ship Noordam drowned.

The most recent Costa Concordia incident off the coast of Italy is recorded on the IMO database. So too is a near miss — a so-called close-quarter situation — involving the Costa Atlantica, which in 2008 came too close to the Panamanian registered car carrier Grand Neptune in the Dover Strait between Britain and France. The cruise ship was crossing a traffic separation zone which is shipping’s answer to a one-way street and designed to reduce the chances of collisions in busy shipping lanes.

The IMO database lists 38 incidents involving passenger ships since 2005 in which more than 60 people died. The incidents, which include ferries, range in severity from momentary groundings with little damage and no injuries to the loss of the ship and several lives. What data there are, show Carnival as owner of 12 of the 38 ships to get into trouble while Royal Caribbean International was operator of three, as was Fred Olsen. The others have not been identified or belonged to smaller, local cruise or ferry companies.

A recent report by industry analysts Cruise Market Watch showed Carnival had a 49.2 per cent share of the global cruise market followed by Royal Caribbean with 23.8 per cent.

For the period since 2000, the IMO database has recorded just under 300 incidents involving passenger-carrying vessels ranging from near misses to sinkings although prior to 2005 the details available in relation to any given accident are often patchy.

Data compiled by sociologist Professor Ross Klein of Memorial University Newfoundland, who in 2007 testified before a U.S. congressional hearing into cruise safety but whose findings have often been disputed by the industry, indicates the rate of reportable accidents could be much higher, however.

Klein’s data, which he posts on his website www.cruisejunkie.com, suggest that for cruise ships alone there have been 368 disabling events such as fires, 174 persons overboard, 75 groundings and 27 sunken ships, giving a total of 644 incidents since 2000. That’s more than twice what the IMO data shows for cruise ships, ferries and other passenger vessels combined.

“No one keeps track of it and it’s not really reported anywhere,” Klein told Reuters. “I scour the world media every morning and look for what’s been reported anywhere. I receive about 3,500 hits on my website every day, a lot of them are passengers and crew members and they send me information.”

 

 

I feel that there must be a database created that is open to interrogation by us, the public, those who cruise, to seek any relevant safety information that we deem necessary to allow us to choose which line looks after our safety before the pennies/pounds or dimes/dollars

 

 

:):)

[Davyjonesrugrat]

Here is a site that allows you to look at some of the incidents involving cruise ships from 1979 until 2012....

 

http://www.cruiseresearch.org/MAR.html

 

posted without prejudice

 

rgds

:)

[Davyjonesrugrat]

Getting involved in a mid-sea accident can be anyone’s nightmare come true, but it is also something that happens almost every other year, turning a perfect holiday in to a tragedy. The world has witnessed a number of cruise ship accidents in the history and one might assume that with technological advancements mishaps might be on a downhill; but you’ll be surprised how many are still reported every year. Some are victims of nature’s wrath while some fall prey to human error, whatever the reason is, cruise ship accidents often end up creating fear in the minds of people.

 

 

We have brought to nine of the worst cruise ship accidents, some gruesome while some minor, that will always been remembered for the fear they have generated on people’s hearts. There have been many incidents of fires, accidents and even sinking that has made the news. However, some the noted cruise ships accidents until today are:

1) Titanic

Probably the worst maritime tragedy of all times, you cannot talk about ship accidents without mentioning the ill-fated Cruise ship Titanic. On her maiden voyage from Southampton, England to New York, USA, Titanic collided with an iceberg after four days into sailing. The collision led to its sinking and resulted in the death of 1517 people in 1912.

2) SS Morro Castle

Of all the cases of fire on board cruise ships, the SS Morro Castle fire case was probably the worst and the most gruesome in the history of maritime industry. Luxury cruise ship of the 1930s, Morro Castle was en route New York when the ship caught fire. Due the building material of the ship and lack of firefighting equipment and skills, the ship was burnt down severely killing a total of 137 people on board.

3) Royal Pacific cruise

The August of 1992 witnessed the sinking of Greek owned Royal Pacific after a collision with a fishing trawler due to low visibility. The collision took place when Royal Pacific was passing thought the Straits of Malacca and the fishing trawler, Terfu 51 rammed in to the cruise ship. Due to the sheer disregard of the crew to save the passengers as many as 30 people died and 70 people were injured out of the 530 passengers on board.

 

4) Costa Concordia

The most Recent Cruise ship involved in an accident which was grounded near coast of Italy with 4000 passengers on board. For more information read -Sinking of Costa Concordia Cruise Ship Reminds Survivors of Titanic.

 

5) Club Royale

A luxury Casino cruise ship, Club Royale gambled and lost the bet to a heavy storm resulting in its sinking in August of 1995. The 234 feet vessel succumbed to violent lashing of Hurricane Erin about 90 miles east of Port Canaveral, Florida.

Fortunately no passengers were on board during this tragedy but only 8 of the 11 crew members were saved that day.

 

6) Oceonos

This Greek-owned ship sank off South-Africa’s eastern coast in 1991. The rough sea conditions resulting in a tumultuous storm caused the ship to roll from side to side and eventually water started to flood the vessel resulting in its sinking. No one was killed and after a successful rescue mission all 571 passengers onboard the ship were saved.

 

7) Pacific Sun

P&O owned Pacific sun was returning to Auckland from the islands of Vanuatu when it ran into a tumultuous storm almost 400 miles north of New Zealand. Although no deaths were reported more than 40 people were injured and hurt due to intense rolling of the ship which literally flung people from one to another.

 

8) Star Princess

Owned by Princess Cruise, a major fire broke on board Star Princess on the 23rd of March 2006. In the wee hours of morning the captain sounded the emergency signals waking up the passengers, which was then followed by an organized and successful evacuation procedure. No casualties were reported, however the cause of the fire was found to be a cigarette which was left burning on the balcony.

 

9) Norwegian Dawn

Norwegian Cruise Line’s Norwegian Dawn was on its way back to New York after a trip to the Bahamas when the vessel was hit by a freak 70 foot high wave. The cabins were flooded and people even on the 10th floor reported getting soaked due to the wave.

10) Louis Majesty

Owned and operated by Louis Cruise Lines, Louis Majesty is a luxury cruise ship which reported getting hit by rogue waves which claimed the life of two passengers and injuring several others. The 8 meter high waves collided with the side of the ship and flooded the vessel resulting in many smashed windows in the saloon area.

[Davyjonesrugrat]

Review of Cruise Ship Incidents

 

 

Jan 26

Posted by shipwreckguy Filed in Allision, Capsize, Collision, Costa Concordia, Explosion, Fire, Grounding, Sank

 

 

 

 

The Costa Concordia grounding is not an isolated event for the cruise ship industry. Here are just small list of major accidents reported in the news since 2007:

 

• September 15, 2011 – The MS Nordlys had an explosion in the engine room the caused a large fire killing two crew and evacuation of the vessel at Hurtigruten, Norway.
  
• April 15, 2011 – The MV Ocean Star Pacific had an engine room fire forcing 748 passengers and crew to be evacuated off the ship to Huatulco, Mexico.
  
• January 31, 2011 – The Polar Star ran aground off Antarctica damaging the vessel’s outer hull with passengers evacuated to another vessel.
  
• December 7, 2010 – The Clelia II was struck by a large wave off the remote South Shetland Islands suffering engine damage.
  
• December 3, 2010 – The RMS Queen Mary 2 suffered an explosion causing a short term power outage.
  
• November 8, 2010 – The MV Carnival Splendor had an engine room fire resulting in a complete power loss. The vessel towed back to San Diego with the US Navy providing food for passengers.
  
• October 18, 2010 – The Costa Classica collided with a cargo vessel in the Yangtze River inflicting a 20 meter long gash between passenger decks.
  
• Feb 26, 2010 – The Costa Europa allided into a quay at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt tearing a two meter hole drowning three crew and injuring four passengers.
  
• June 18, 2009 – The MV Royal Princess had a fire in the engine room off Port Said, Egypt causing extensive damage.
  
• February 26, 2009 – The Costa Romantica had a fire in the generator room causing a power outage. Passengers were evacuated after crew was unable to repair the generators.
  
• June 21, 2008 – The MV Princess of the Stars capsized and sank off San Fernando, Philippines when struck by a typhoon. The vessel with 860 passengers and crew on board had only 32 survivors.
  
• November 23, 2007 – The cruise ship Explorer struck a submerged object off Antarctica and sank. No lives were lost, but over 150 individuals were forced into open lifeboats.
  
• April 5, 2007 - The MV Sea Diamond struck a reef of the Greek island of Santorini with 1195 passengers on board. Vessel filled with water and later sank. Two passengers lost.
  

http://www.shipwrecklog.com/log/2012/01/review-of-cruise-ship-incidents/

 

 

:)

[loubetti]

And everyone forgets the QE2 incidents, such as "QE2 on the rocks" in 1992. I was on board for that one (no complaints either).

 

Anyone remember what ship came to the rescue of QE2 when she had steam turbine problems back in the early 70's?

 

It was "Sea Venture". Anyone know what that ship later was named, and how famous she became? (everyone goes to Google the name now!)

 

I notice that "Empress of Ireland" was not mentioned, and that's a shame as over 1000 died on her on the Saint Lawrence river when she collided with another ship in fog.

 

The list goes on... Nothing is 100% safe, get used to it.

[greg-nc]

These lists do not even include the sinking of the Sun Vista on May 21, 1999 after catching on fire leaving the passengers & crew for eight hours in lifeboats. This ship formerly was the Celebrity Meridian.

 

http://maritimematters.com/2010/02/a-cruise-to-remember-the-sinking-of-the-sun-vista/

[JohnIreland]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Wilhelm_Gustloff

 

The Wilhelm Gustloff sank during World War 2 , with estimates up to 9,400 lost.

[Gingee]

What does MV stand for? MV Ocean Star Pacific is one.

[greg-nc]

What does MV stand for? MV Ocean Star Pacific is one.

 

MV stands for Motor Vessel.

[jcl410]

What does MV stand for? MV Ocean Star Pacific is one.

 

Motor Vessel (diesel powered normally) (sometimes MS)

 

some others:

 

SS Steam Ship (some times also TSS for Turbine SS)

 

GTV Gas Turbine Vessel (ala Radiance of the Seas)

 

Aloha,

 

John

[Gingee]

Are those "MV" cruise ships?