Dark Story: Harvard Economist Explains Why Captains Are Arrested When Oil Is Spilled

In the opening scene to the movie All the Presidents Men, the most famous whistleblower in history (Deep Throat) gives Washington Post investigative journalist Bob Woodward some critical advice “Follow the money”. Woodward did follow the money and used that evidence to bring down the most powerful man in the world. Today another investigative journalist – BBC veteran and Harvard trained economist Nishan Degnarain – is following the money that’s flowing in the wake of the M/V Wakashio oil spill and the result could have huge implications for the shipping industry.

The continued criminalization of the mariner is a problem that’s been growing since Captain Joe Hazlewood was arrested in 1989 after the oil tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground in Alaska. The problem grew until it reached such ridiculous levels that Captains aboard anchored vessels were jailed. Then the problem became much worse. Today if you can’t blame the Captain, you can still drag his widow into the hearings. Much has been written about this problem. Less has been written about the simple fact that ship owners are almost always found at fault in investigations but are never arrested. What has not been written about is how blaming the captain benefits ship owners and insurers financially.

“Unfortunately, the mariner involved in a major mishap is always the easiest and most vulnerable target,” says Michael Chalos, who successfully defended Captain Hazlewood.  “The more powerful interests, which many times are responsible for the root cause of the mishap, remain anonymous and united in protecting their interests and agendas by unfairly shifting the blame onto the hapless mariners who do not have the wherewithal, financial and otherwise, to defend themselves. For these interests, the chain of causation starts and ends with the mariner.”

You can’t delve very deeply into tanker issues before you will run across a statement like “IMO estimates that over 90 percent of all marine pollution incidents are due to human error.”  IMO is the International Maritime Organization whose official casualty synopsis has a section called “Human Factors” which apparently must be filled in. It is often the longest section in the casualty description. You can’t delve into news about ship incidents today without hearing these words reiterated by law enforcement officers as justification for arresting captains.

If you only read the headlines,  arresting the Captains is a logical decision. But who is writing those headlines? Headlines claiming that Joe Hazelwood of the Exxon Valdez “was drunk”, John Cota of the Cosco Busan “was high on prescription drugs”, Michael Davidson of the El Faro “was incompetent”, and the Costa Concordia’s Francesco Schettino was “an egomaniac”. Those are the media headlines, the problem is, they are often not true.

On one level, blaming incidents on captains and “human error”. Even after the headlines are proven false in a court of law and his license is returned to him, nobody can deny – with 20/20 hindsight – that the Captain of a grounded ship made some mistakes.

“On one level, blaming spills or other tanker problems on “human error” is a barren truism.” said former shipowner, MIT department chair, and shipping industry whistleblower Dr. Jack Devanney.  “Tankers are created and operated by humans. Any problem with any man-made system is ultimately a human error but ‘Human error,’ tells us nothing. Much worse, ‘human error’ is usually a code phrase for ‘blame the crew’.”

But how does this financially benefit the shipowner and insurer?

Crew negligence is an insured risk. Owner negligence is not.