Caution: Don’t Read this if you can’t handle truth… I see so many buck passing irresponsible replies that I am compelled to say my piece. Protecting the safety of a vessel, it’s cargo and most importantly all souls on board is incumbent on the Licensed Master of the vessel. If a Master (like too many do) neglect to maintain a wakeful watch, then indeed that negligence can, and has costs lives and yes, it is the DUTY of any Master to require a proper watch. Apathy kills. My heart breaks for the internal torment this man must suffer because of his negligence and apathy which caused so much suffering and death. Yes, a company’s policy should also require such and the company should be held to account as well, and that company should certainly be held financially responsible to the families. Amongst other things, the Master of the vessel had the legal and ethical duty to require wakeful watchstanding and he did NOT. The Master is the licensee who must be responsible for the souls aboard. It is a great responsibility and he failed, this dereliction of basic duties caused needless suffering and death. Period. Passing the buck to the USCG seems to be a common theme in this thread, which I find juvenile and irresponsible to assert. Anyone intelligent enough to obtain a master’s license knows that no vessel is safe when not operated safely. Not ensuring that the passengers knew where the escape hatch was and how to use it… Captain’s fault! Not requiring a wakeful watchstander… Captain’s fault! It is a high honor and great responsibility to be a vessel’s Master those who aren’t responsible enough to be in command and understand the need to delegate duties as appropriate should never assume command. Prayers for all who are suffering and have suffered including the captain, but I will not pass the buck or blame shift. Any licensee who has been commanding any vessel in such manner should learn from this tragedy and correct their actions… Accidents happen, but these poor people being burned alive was a completely preventable tragedy. And that is the fault of the Skipper who failed in his duty.
I believe and have said on this thread that the captain should be held accountable.
How is it decided that this is not 'buck passing"?
Practically speaking, there are different needs and expectations for Masters on different types of vessels in different types of trades.
Part of the rational for allowing small commercial passenger vessels with no inspection or licenses (“Six-Packs”) and passenger vessels with more than 6 passengers, but under 100 tons with licensed Masters ( at a low level) and inspection (at a low level) is to provide the public with affordable access to boating. Not everyone can afford a pleasure boat of their own. Many pleasure boat owners can only afford their boats by doing some chartering (on which they lose money and take tax write offs).
If all vessels and Masters were to be held to the highest standards (with the resulting high costs) there would be virtually no affordable access to boating by the general public.
There needs to be, and there is, a balance here.
Dredging up an ancient, and until fairly recently forgotten, law designed to prevent steam boiler explosions 150 years ago, is inappropriate and unjust. This oddball law that uniquely imposes criminal penalties for simple negligence was a mistake and probably unconstitutional 150 years ago. It remains so now.
Courts in theory do not make new constitutional law, they merely interpret, discover, and declare what is constitutional at the time of decision. Interpretations can, and do change, in light of changed circumstances and how our society has evolved.
It’s time for this bad law to be consigned to the dust bin of history.
There is settled precedent, as well as common and statutory provisions of Maritime Law which address a ship owner’s duty of care. It is not Buck Passing, rather making mention of such obligations of vessel owners. But, those technical legal issues will be appropriately dealt with in the courts. This was a horrific; if anything good is gleaned from this senseless and preventable tragedy it will be that captain’s and vessel owners might be more mindful in matters of safety.
First, I think the captain should be held accountable and also he is likely in significant legal trouble as I’ve said.
So the captain is at fault and to blame but the company needs to be more mindful in the future?
Evidently people are able to reach this conclusion intuitively. I don’t know or understand the facts so intuition or notions of fairness don’t get me anywhere in this case.
It’s a known fact that there is a bias against the people closest to the incident at the time. This bias helps people responsible but further away to avoid accountability.
What is this known fact based on? If an individual is ultimately responsible for failure to perform his essential duty, I don’t see the focus put on him as bias. Bias implies a disproportionate amount of blame not in accordance with objective facts. Even if a slippery slope is allowed to exist on the part of management, whether he is responsible for six or a thousand lives if a master allows an usafe condition to exist, it’s his duty to fix it. In this case the CG nor management was on oboard to look over his shoulder. Second in command after God is an old saying that applies.
The license comes with responsibility as a driver’s license comes with the responsibility to not drive on bald tires and then blame the manufacturer or tire salesman for an accident.
In this case the CG and the vessel owner provided the driver with 4 bald tires. If the driver said no to driving on those tires he would be replaced with another driver who would.
The company position until a mass casualty event occurs is “we followed the rules, if the driver doesn’t like the rules he can lobby to change them. In the meantime we employ only those who conform to USCG and company rules.”
So anyone that claims a bias to blame the driver does not exist is disingenuous at best.
That’s not an excuse to accept complicity for something you know is unsafe. I have personally walked away from a part 135 job and a dive boat job because I wasn’t comfortable with being on the hook for someone else’s corner cutting.
There was no company rule prohibiting a night watch or compliance with the COI.
Focusing on what the captain did wrong is one way of looking at an incident. Another way (via Leveson) is asking why it made sense for the captain to act the way he did.
If the answer is that the captain was simply irresponsible; that doesn’t explain why the practice was widespread in the dive boat sector. It’s too much of a coincidence that all or most of the other captains suffered from the same defect.
The conditions that made this incident possible was the relatively recent flood of battery powered devices. Along with the changing technology and types of batteries prevalent today.
The source and time of ignition make only one slice of cheese… there was supposed to be a few more in the stack.
I agree, but the batteries we use in our everyday devices has become so ubiquitous that the potential dangers are not considered as we blindly lead our lives. At home we often have a phone charger connected to some outlet. As these devices have multiplied you see people clustered around outlets at the airport. Then you have the Conception, and boats like her, with limited outlets and a lot of demand. It is easy to say now that it was not a question of a fire occurring, it was a matter of when.
Nor was there a company rule that prohibited him from hiring another crewmember and paying that person out of his own pocket. The culture in which he operated was the company culture that was accepted by and blessed by the CG. The seed of this tragedy was planted long before this captain was hired and molded to the company culture.
Just like nearly all air crashes used to be attributed to pilot error we have a bias to blame the one person who if they had taken some specific action could have prevented the tragedy while we seem ready to excuse those who created the world he worked in, even if that specific action did not exist in that world.
Life’s not fair. With reference to Leveson and an engineering approach to safety in the new thread, you can analyze these situations as systemic problems and it’s a valid approach but looking at the Conception from the captain’s perspective, here’s the bottom line: you accept a job as master and realize that the company is cutting corners on safety. You tell them you won’t sail under those conditions and they tell you it’s the way they operate; it’s either their way or the gangway. You either accept the risk or walk away. It’s gut wrenching to walk away and start again from scratch, in my case more than once, broke and unemployed. Decisions can have harsh repercussions but either you stand by your principles or you don’t.
It is hard to make that decision but it is all about principles and groceries. I was hired on a boat in the GOM owned by a major operator there. After a day in the ER it was obvious the OWS was not being used. It was also obvious the overboard valve had been used so much the paint was worn off. I told the captain this would not happen while I was onboard. He told me, “You need to get used to how things are done here.” I called my wife and told her to go to Sam’s Club and stock up because here we go again. In the end things worked out well for me and the company.
Seems far more likely that the level of risk was misjudged rather than the risk being understood and ignored.
My worse case was when both my wife and I had new jobs. I’d just hired on as captain of a crew boat in the GOM. It wasn’t a safety issue but within a few weeks I realized I hated the job and quit. On the way home from Louisiana to south Florida, I called my wife to tell her to hang on to her job because I had just quit mine and was heading home. After a pregnant pause she told me she had just quit her new job.
I called the SIU hall on the phone in a panic and they told me if I could get to the port of Elizabeth in NJ by morning I could have a berth on a Maersk container ship. They agreed to have a ticket waiting for me out of Orlando if I wanted the job. I left my car in a lot near the airport and made it in time so it was a close call but I made it.
This Captain apparently came up in this California dive boat trade and has 30 years of experience. It’s what he knows. Apparently, it’s all he knows.
He did not ignore or neglect known risks. He followed the universal standard operating procedure in his trade, in his company, and on his vessel. He did exactly what he had been trained to do for 30 years. He knew that what he was doing was safe and acceptable because it had at least a 30 year track record of proven success in that trade, at that company, and on that vessel.
He failed to foresee the new element of danger from charging lithium batteries. How many of us might have foreseen that? 1% of us?
If he had “known any better,” and if he had refused to follow the standard operating company, and fleet wide, procedures in that trade, he would have been instantly replaced by someone that would follow the customs of that trade.
With the benefit of hindsight, what is needed here are major design, construction, and operating safety improvements throughout this entire fleet and trade, not a scapegoat , so that everyone else can dismiss this as a one time oddball event caused by a bad Captain, and then just continue with business as usual.
You: Hey there fish, is that water wet?
Fish: What’s water?
Ever get asked to do all the W&B in flight?
Me: “What the hell…why bother if I already took off? A little late to discover I’m heavy?”
Company: Well we don’t pay you to leave shit on the ramp, you’re loading it ALL.