Bad Boat Fire Santa Cruz Island

This incident will sink the operating company. No Insurance company will carry them going forward....
 
Update... USCG is being sued by victims families

while I m a fan of lawsuits, usually the biggest winners are the darn lawyers, may this will help prevent future tragedies. This is a pretty usual lawsuit as well

reading the NTSB report, it is clear that the emergency exit wasn’t adequate and the lack of fire detector in the main cabin played a big role. USCG inspectors should have red flagged these during the inspection process

obviously the crew and operator bears responsibility as well

Coast Guard Sued by Families of the 34 Victims in Conception Dive Boat Fire | Military.com

www.military.com www.military.com
 
Adequate for realistic situations like the one that occurred? Clearly not. Adequate to the subchapter T standards? The article and other ones I've seen in the public domain don't address that, so I won't comment. What would the marine industry's reaction be if the USCG started imposing arbitrary standards above and beyond law and regulation? They'd go ballistic. Marine Inspectors can only apply laws and regulations as written - which, as I understand, was the impetus behind the Passenger Vessel Safety Act (I think that's what it's called) that Rep. Carbajal came up with. He's one of VERY few politicians that I don't dislike but almost entirely disagree with (whole other story), but I think he did a solid GOOD thing with that legislation to bolster perfectly reasonable safety standards for T boats.
 
I ageee. That said look at the pictures of the aft escape hatch in the NTSB report. They show it from the bunk room and from above deck. The average passenger would struggle to get out that way. Hard to believe it qualified.

interestingly after the accident the operator retrofitted the sister ship with a watertight deck hatch and a ladder on the side deck. That’s in the NTSB report as well

yes the USCG can only enforce existing regs but they could also make recommendations to the operators as well as sending such up the chain of commands where they could issue additional regs or circulars without requiring an act of Congress.

Reading the report is making me think about how to handle device battery charging on the boat. While we have at the most 12 to 14 crew and guests that a quite a few go-pro, drone and camera batteries in addition to phone and tablets. Can’t do much about phones and tablets but thinking about setting up a charging station for everything else where a fire would have a hard time strarting, like on a granite countertop with a fire alarm close by. Maybe I m just overthinking it.

we do have fairly large lithium battery for the eFoil and that always gets charged away from flammable materials and near a fire alarm.
 
I read the report and saw those pictures, and I was very surprised it qualified, too. Easy to see how this ended so badly. I don't have much offhand knowledge of T boat regs like I do for recreational and uninspected passenger vessels, though I do know Marine Inspectors cut NO slack. It either complies or it does not.

It's very rare that I support more government regulation, but I think the PVSA or whatever it's called is a very good thing, and needed.

EDIT: Here's the report. Worth reading and paying attention to the electrical hazards - especially as they relate to charging lithium batteries.

 
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this happened to my phone last week. I suspect a cell in the battery swelled and pushed the phone case apart. I'd take it apart to verify, but I have to return the phone and don't want them saying I pried it open. Phone still works, but just got replacement
 

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I ve had this happen on a couple of older iPhones over the years. Maybe 3 or 4 year old.
 
No doubt he was guilty but equally guilty are the USCG inspectors who allows this death trap to carry that many passengers below deck with really a single exit and no fire / smoke detectors.

Also nowadays with so many personal electronics there should be minimum numbers of outlets and charging location guidelines.
 
Folks the Captain is responsible. Did the owner put the Captain in a trick bag? Of course he did. Did the USCG drop the ball by continuing to Approve/Certify a "legacy" charter operation? Use this as a teaching moment and Remove from your boat, those home style Smoke/CO alarms you purchased at a Big Box store and replace them with Fire/Smoke/CO alarm system designed, manufactured and tested for the Marine environment. Proper Marine Fire/Smoke/CO alarm systems are not cheap, but neither are funerals.
 
Does ABYC require a smoke detector? Fumes? Yes. CO? Yes. Smoke? And what year did they become required and are old Hatteras included?
 
ABYC is irrelevant to inspected passenger vessels. It s up to the regulations passed by congress which the USCG have to enforce. Unfortunately the USCG inspectors have to follow regulations so accidents like that will keep happening…
 
PascalG said:
ABYC is irrelevant to inspected passenger vessels. It s up to the regulations passed by congress which the USCG have to enforce. Unfortunately the USCG inspectors have to follow regulations so accidents like that will keep happening…
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They did pass new legislation in the wake of that incident. Small Passenger Vessel Safety Act was pushed through by Salud Carbajal in California that addressed fire safety and egress routes. I don’t recall the details of the regulatory changes, but they were very positive for a change.
 
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