A Closer Look At the Migrant Boat Disaster Off Greece
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Sub-Committee on Ship Design and Equipment (DE), 53rd session: 22 – 26 February 2010
Replacing unsafe lifeboat release mechanisms – guidelines agreed by Sub-Committee
Draft guidelines to ensure release mechanisms for lifeboats are replaced with those complying with new, stricter safety standards have been agreed by IMO’s Sub-Committee on Ship Design and Equipment (DE), 53rd session, in order to reduce the number of accidents involving lifeboats, particularly those which have occurred during drills or inspection.
The draft Guidelines for evaluation and replacement of lifeboat on-load release mechanisms will be submitted to the Maritime Safety Committee in May (MSC 87) for approval, alongside the anticipated adoption of amendments to the International Life-Saving Appliances (LSA) Code and the Recommendation on testing of LSA, which require safer design of on-load release mechanisms, as well as a related draft amendment to the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), chapter III Life-saving appliances, which will require lifeboat on-load release mechanisms not complying with the new LSA Code requirements to be replaced no later than the next scheduled dry-docking of the ship following entry into force of the SOLAS amendments.
The Sub-Committee recommended that Administrations and shipowners be strongly urged to use the guidelines to evaluate existing lifeboat on-load release mechanisms at the earliest available opportunity, in advance of the entry into force of the new SOLAS and LSA Code amendments.
The Sub-Committee also agreed draft amendments to the Revised recommendation on testing of life-saving appliances concerning test procedures for lifeboat hooks, for adoption by MSC 87.
This new package of amendments and guidelines addressing lifeboat release mechanisms follows intensive work within the DE Sub-Committee and by the MSC, over a number of years, to address the significant number of serious injuries and fatalities which had been occurring during lifeboat drills and inspections.
Measures which have already been adopted/approved, to address the prevention of accidents involving lifeboats, include:
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