The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) really useful Tuesday that engine-room hearth detection and glued hearth extinguishing programs be put in in small passenger vessels beforehand exempted from U.S. Coast Guard laws in Subchapter Okay.
The NTSB issued the suggestions after investigating an engine room hearth aboard the Spirit of Norfolk throughout a sightseeing cruise close to Naval Station Norfolk, Viriginia, on June 7, 2022, with 108 folks on board. The hearth was too giant for the crew to struggle, and the passengers and crew had been evacuated to different vessels. It then took firefighters 4 days to extinguish the blaze. No accidents had been reported. The vessel was declared a complete lack of $5 million.
For greater than 20 years, the NTSB has been involved with the elevated threat of engine room fires and their means to develop undetected on small passenger vessels. The NTSB first really useful requiring hearth detection and glued hearth suppression programs in all small passenger vessels carrying greater than 49 folks to the Coast Guard in 2007 after investigating commuter ferry fires in 2000 and 2006. Current laws exempt small passenger vessels regulated underneath Subchapter Okay that had been working earlier than March 10, 1996, from sure building, association and set up necessities, together with engine-room hearth detection and glued hearth extinguishing programs. Subchapter Okay small passenger vessels are licensed to hold greater than 150 passengers or have in a single day lodging for greater than 49 passengers.
“It is time for the U.S. Coast Guard to remove the exemption from the regulations,” stated NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy. “More than 100 of these exempted small passenger vessels are currently operating without fire detection or firefighting systems in their engine rooms while carrying hundreds of passengers—a completely unnecessary risk to passengers and crew. Vessels carrying a large number of people, no matter when they began operations, should be required to have fire detection and prevention systems so crews can take immediate action to protect and save lives.”
NTSB investigators decided the fireplace on the Spirit of Norfolk was probably brought on by the ignition of flamable supplies saved close to the exhaust pipe of the working port generator. As the vessel was in service earlier than 1996, it was not required to have engine-room hearth detection and glued hearth extinguishing programs. The lack of those programs allowed the fireplace to develop unnoticed and precluded crew firefighting efforts.
NTSB investigators additionally discovered ineffective communications between the unified command, fashioned to coordinate firefighting and response operations, and firefighting groups contributed to the severity of the fireplace on the Spirit of Norfolk. The unified command’s authentic plan to struggle the fireplace was to put foam into the engine room by way of the emergency hatch on the primary deck. The firefighting groups weren’t in a position to find the hatch and didn’t talk that to the unified command nor did the unified command monitor the groups’ efforts to find the hatch. Instead of utilizing the hatch, the fireplace assault crew opened the engine room door, which allowed the fireplace to unfold.
City Cruises, operator of the Spirit of Norfolk and different sightseeing vessels, advised the NTSB they’ve dedicated to a multi-year venture to retrofit their vessels with fastened hearth extinguishing and hearth detection programs.