December 10, 2007 - Upon departure from Montevideo on The Rio de la Plata, the M/V Norwegian Dream fully loaded with passengers on a 23 day cruise, collided with an adrift container barge. Despite valiant efforts the collision could not be avoided.
Both vessels suffered severe damage. The barge lost multiple autos and containers overboard with loss and damage estimated in the millions. The M/V Norwegian Dream suffered a four-by-four foot hole in the bow about five feet above the water line, and was quickly returned to Montevideo for repairs.
As for the passengers, they were offered some compensation for the mishap but continued on after the repairs were made.
More information on this incident can be found at CargoLaw.
Another interesting note… The Norwegian Dream is now a two-time Incident Photo of The Week’er. Check out the first incident HERE.
Tags: · barge, collision, cruise_ship, incident, incident photos
Like one of those awkward moments you get when rushing on a busy sidewalk, M/V Grande Nigeria and M/V Nada V just couldn’t seem to pick sides and suffered a head on collision.
More information and photos of this incident can be found at CargoLaw.
Tags: · cargo_law, collision, crash, incident, incident photos, Photo
The Windoc blocks the canal. Alex Howard
In August 2001 the Bulk Carrier Windoc was lined up on the Welland Canal’s Bridge 11 in Ontario Canada. After recieving the flashing amber approach light indicating that the bridge operator was aware of the vessel the captain lined up on the centerline and maintained a speed of 5 knots. Minutes later while the vessel was half way through the bridge started descending.
The Bridge Team’s Story
When the vessel was approximately halfway under the bridge, the third officer observed that the bridge signal lights were solid red and the lift span was descending. At 2053, the master sounded a few blasts on the ship’s whistle. The master, without identifying himself or the bridge in question, called the TCC on VHF channel 14 about the lowering of the bridge. The master quickly stopped the engines and ordered an evacuation of the wheelhouse.The master and third officer left the wheelhouse by the starboard navigation bridge wing. As they proceeded down the external bridge access ladder, the span of the bridge struck the vessel in way of the wheelhouse front windows, subsequently destroying the vessel’s wheelhouse and funnel. The wheelsman remained at his station in the wheelhouse and lay down on the deck as the bridge span passed overhead. He freed himself from the debris and descended by the deckhouse stairwell alive.
Miraculously no one was killed in the event. [Continue Reading →]
Tags: · Bridges, canada, cargo ship, collision, damage photo, death, fire, Firefighting, ntsb, ship, ship photo, ship photographs, survival, windoc, youtube
Tags: · Bridges, collapse, collision, fatalities, History, incident, ship
SAN FRANCISCO, Calf. - The United Stated Coast Guard is responding to a tug and barge allision with the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. At approximately 6pm the tug and barge were headed outbound from Rodeo when it struck the east piling of the west span of the Richmond Bridge. The barge capacity is 65,195 barrels of heavy black oil and the ship’s crew reported no pollution on scene. Coast Guard boarding teams and small boat are on scene verifying that no pollution was released into the environment and the Coast Guard investigation has begun. All affected city, county and state first responders in the surrounding area including California Department of Fish and Game Office of Spill Prevention and Response, Richmond Police Department HAZMAT, California Office of Emergency Services, CAL TRANS, and California Highway Patrol have been notified and several of these agencies are responding to this incident. The companies contracted two oil response vessels were on scene within an hour of the allision. USCG District 11
Our friends Jim Herd of the SFist and Carl Nolte of SFGate have further coverage of the incident.
Tags: · Bridges, collision, incident photos, richmond bridge, tugboat
First a note… I am publishing this short clip ahead of my next article because of its importance!
While preparing our upcoming “questions for investigators” article on the Cosco Busan incident we were asked by more than one party a question along this line; with communications failure being a leading cause of incidents and the crew of the Cosco Busan being Chinese of limited english skills (they required translators during the investigation) why do incidents of this type not happen more often?
The answer is Bridge Team Management.
Ok… so what is BRM?
Revisiting a previous post I state:
- Bridge Team (or resource) Management (called BRM in the industry) is a process to use all of your available resources during critical operations. It came from the airline industry which found an alarming number of accidents happened despite prior warning from the equipment or crew…. mostly by captains with military backgrounds and a “I can do this” attitude who did not fully use critical information from either the equipment or junior personnel.Boiled down it’s a class all officers must take in both teamwork and processing the large amounts of data (lookout reports, radar, radio comms, gps charting, weather information….) that pours into the bridge.
- Here’s a more official answer:The Bridge Team Management course introduces the concept of a navigation team to ship masters and watch officers and frames their decision making process toward establishing watch conditions during the course of the voyage. Bridge Team Management techniques will emphasize decision making based upon conditions related to workload and potential threat to the vessel. The intent of the program is to define the individual task and responsibilities of the various team members while developing a situational awareness to prevent individual errors.
In stating the importance of this post I am looking at the media reaction to the incident. In reporting disasters the public is often not satisfied until a single individual is blamed…. quickly. This was the case in the Exxon Valdez oil spill, Tampa Skyway Bridge Disaster and even in the early reports on the Empress of the North grounding where fault was placed on the Jr. Officer on watch who was only weeks out of the Maritime Academy. In the Empress of the North incident gCaptain broke from traditional media and laid the blame on management techniques rather than the “green” officer and we are happy to report he was recently clear of all charges (as was Capt. Hazelwood of the Exxon Valdez).
It is clear to us the Cosco Busan allided with the Bay Bridge because of a breakdown in Bridge Team Management. For example while VTS contacted the ship questing its course did the mate on watch, captain, helmsman or assist tug captain also voice concern? Was the equipment operational and set up properly? As the primary fault for the Exxon Valdez incident was not with Captain Hazelwood (he was cleared of charges and his license was reinstated) John Cota, Pilot aboard the Cosco Busan is not solely at fault for this incident.
The team failed the Cosco Busan not the ship’s Chinese Captain or American Pilot alone. Lets just hope the court of public opinion does not convict either person before the long and thorough investigation is completed. Otherwise they might stand the fate of Captain Hazelwood, cleared of charges and fully licensed to pilot a ship but unable to find a company willing to hire him.
________
Asking yourself how a ship 131 wide could have such trouble in a channel 737 metres wide? Read a more unbelievable story HERE then watch the amazing slideshow HERE.
UPDATE: Bob Couttie of the Maritime Accident Casebook has a very interesting article along similar lines. You can find it HERE.
UPDATE 2:
Criminal probe opened in Bay oil spill
The entire crew of the cargo ship that sideswiped a bridge, causing San Francisco Bay’s worst oil spill in nearly two decades, has been detained as part of a criminal investigation, a Coast Guard official said Sunday.
Capt. William Uberti said he notified the U.S. attorney’s office on Saturday about issues involving management and communication among members of the bridge crew: the helmsman, the watch officer, the ship’s master and the pilot.
Tags: · allision, bay_bridge, bridge_team, China, collision, Communication, communications_failure, Container Ship, cosco_busan, Empress Of The North, Incidents, marpol, MARPOL Incidents, Master Mariner, oil_spill, pasha_bulker, San Francisco, san_francisco, sopep, team_management, Uncategorized
In covering the recent San Francisco Bay Bridge incident I have noticed most (but not all) of the news articles have made a small error in terminology. In describing the incident where the Cosco Busan hit the Bay Bridge many prominent news organizations referred to event as a collision when in fact it was an allision.
For clarification: A vessel collides with another moving vessel…. A vessel allides with a fixed object (unless it is submerged) and is presumed at fault.
Marine Dictionary - Allision
For those interested in learning more about the incident here are some good links;
For future articles stay tuned with our Maritime News Discoverer’s Upcoming Links
Here is a photo of the environmental damage;
Kurt Rogers / San Francisco Chronicle
Update: [Continue Reading →]
Tags: · allision, bar_pilots, bridge_incident, collision, Container Ship, cosco_busan, Incidents, marex, marpol, MARPOL Incidents, oil_spill, San Francisco, san_francisco_bay, san_francisco_bay_bridge, ship
A time lapse of the ZHEN HUA 5 on May 5th 2007 in Harwich Harbour carrying away a Port of Felixstowe ship to shore crane. The crane is twisted and buckled after a collision with a ship. The cruise ship Princess Danae passes in the foreground. YouTube Link
pbase’s description of above photo: [Continue Reading →]
Tags: · collision, crane, heavy, time lapse photography
The Above footage was taken by the Coast Guard during a post collision inspection of the Boston Ferry “Massachusetts”. In an interesting post Panbo asks if AIS could have prevented the incident:
Interesting that an intrepid Boston Globe reporter figured out that AIS transponders might have prevented two Boston ferries from hitting each other in thick fog yesterday morning. This is the sort of thing that promotes public awareness of a valuable safety technology, and perhaps will encourage the FCC, USCG, etc. to move expeditiously on approving Class B and mandating its use on such vessels (or argue that Class A is worth the cost). On the other hand, operator error can not be ignored. Heck, these two boats both work for the MBTA. Wouldn’t you think that they’d know where each other was and be in VHF contact? Not that we all aren’t capable of mistakes. READ MORE….
Tags: · Boston, collision, Ferry
