Star Princess Fire Report Published

[Host CJSKIDS]

While I believe that opinions are helpful and worthwhile, I find the findings of the expert British Maritime Board and its US contributors compelling.

 

Having had formal training as an aircraft accident investigator, I have a bit of knowledge of how investigation boards couch the language of their findings and the use of the word questioned by so many here --"Probable".

 

When we investigated an aircraft accident and found the fuel tanks dry, the fuel indicators at empty, and that the flight time from take-off to crash would have used up all of the fuel on board, we generally wrote that fuel starvation was the or a probable cause of the accident.

 

Although the cause of the aircraft coming to earth was evident, we could not specify that it was the sole cause of the accident because there certainly were, or could have been other contributing causes such as a headwind that reduced the range of the aircraft.

 

As I posted earlier:

 

It is obvious that those taking issue with the use of the phrase. "Probable Cause" have never been involved with conducting or writing accident investingations.

 

As a previous infomed poster has written that in almost every case, that is as far as an accident investigation will go in its determinations.

 

From a careful reading of the report it is obvious that the board concluded that the proximate cause of the fire was a smoldering cigarette. The board could not conclude the origin of the cigarette but in making their time line they doubted that the fire resulted from a cigarette smoked by the occupants of the cabin where the fire began.

 

Therefore the board surmised that the cigarette blew or was tossed from another balcony and smoldered, finally igniting a towel or other material on the balcony then the fire whipped by wind spread to other flamable materials.

 

Smoldering cigarette + flamable material + wind = fire

 

The flamable material and the wind were obvious contributing causes to the fire and its rapid spread.

 

Certainly if a another proximate cause could have been found such as might be evidenced by finding a broken liquor bottle, a burned fusing material etc., that would have been included in the report.

 

 

However, the board of experts and contributors found no such evidence, nor did they find any residue of an accelerant.

 

 

Since an acceleramt is any substance or mixture that "accelerates" the development of fire. Alcohol is an accelerant.

 

 

I fully realize that not everyone will agree with the findings of the board---they never do.

 

However, those with specific expertise in investigating maritime accidents/fires have reached their findings with no axe to grind. That is the reason to have unbiased boards conduct the investigations and openly publish their findings and recommendations.

 

Thank you for putting your experience and opinions down in an easy way to understand. Again, I read everything involved with this and I'm very glad to read another side of it, thanks.