I think in most Scandinavian countries like Norway and Denmark people are put through very rigorous simulator examinations by their Maritime Regulators before they are issued a certificate of competency.
In countries like they UK there are no simulator examinations, people are assessed by the MCA in a small office with small model ships on a table, which is ridiculous considering the simulator tech that is available, there are short courses which involve simulators, but they aren’t formal assessments by the Maritime Regulator like you have in Scandinavia.
I’m not sure if official seafarers assessment in the USA by the USCG involves examinations in a simulator.
I have been reading this thread with great interest, having spent 20 years intimately involved in oil rig safety due to the UK Safety Case Regulations. For those who don’t know the operators of offshore installations are required first of all to identify the risks to their people and then to provide the means of reducing them – regardless of anyone’s regulations. This required me to spend much of my time studying past accidents and identifying the root causes. Much of the discussion here is picking away at the detail and it is true that we can identify individual failings at some point in the construction or operation of all ships if they are involved in accidents. But we have to step back and look at the primary objective. How are we going to keep our people alive in a hostile environment? I wrote five rules This is how I ended my report on the El Faro disaster. Only one is directly to the shipmaster:
“So what could we take away from the investigations? Basically it is the same message that I for one have been promoting for years, and this is regardless of any formal regulatory requirements, which we find time and again are found wanting, or prone to circumvention:
Take responsibility for the safety of others comensurate with your position in the organisation.
Carry out suitable major hazard risk assessments using informed and expert personnel.
Ensure that everybody is suitably trained and qualified for the positions they hold.
Provide effective guidance for your staff, no matter how expert they may appear to be.
That’s a very good point and well said. It reflects both your experience at sea and your skill as a writer. A rare combination.
It’s good advice for individuals working at sea but from the point of view of international shipping as a system the regulations matter a great deal. Of course some companies set higher standards in some areas but not in others, in particular manning levels and work/rest.
None of that works if there is the unwritten #6 rule - You’ll be unemployed if any of that interferes with the schedule.
The one overarching accomplishment of ALPA to airline safety was making it very hard to fire pilots for refusing to fly in unsafe conditions. This did more than every new safety gizmo ever invented to keep planes from crashing.
An excellent point. An inspection/survey, regardless of who does it, is only valid for the condition at the time of the survey/inspection. If something happens between inspections/surveys, it is up to the owner to have it fixed (or someone report the situation to the Regulatory authorities to force the fix).
And you know who has joined the mariner blame game in recent years? Mariners!
I can’t confirm specific cases but there is evidence for an increasing number of senior crew pleading guilty early on and not putting up a fight in court in return for cash or favors down the road. Others have been threatened if they don’t testify along company lines.
What is lacking is not regulations. The regulations are there. The issue is enforcement. The USCG and the Flag States will not hold company management (as well as sometimes mariners) accountable for illegal and unsafe behavior. I know this as I have lived it. I reported illegal safety violations (false logbook entries re lifeboat launching & maneuvering and lying to USCG Inspectors re lifesaving equipment) when I was a Captain at Noble Drilling. These actions were known, encouraged and condoned by Noble Drilling management including the DPA who (I discovered after the fact) I reported this to. This DPA was a 27 year veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard and Noble’s “compliance” group, at the time, was staffed by several former members of the U.S. Coast Guard. I was fired 11 days after reporting these safety violations. I had been Captain for 5 years. I notified and spoke with the USCG’s OCMI for the 8th District and the Liberian Flag State of this illegal conduct. They both looked the other way and did nothing. I was told by a member of the USCG’s 8th District that the USCG was given an order to stand down on investigating Noble Drilling because the situation was too “politically sensitive.”
Additionally, at the time this took place, Noble Drilling had just plead guilty to 8 felony charges related to safety and oil pollution violations as well as major non-conformities with their safety management system from illegal activity on another vessel. I reported Noble’s illegal activity to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Alaska where the case was prosecuted. This U.S. Attorney is a graduate of the USCG Academy and served in the USCG for approximately 25 years. The U.S. Attorney’s Office looked the other way and did nothing despite the fact that Noble Drilling violated their probation only two months after signing their plea agreement and commencing probation. In fact, Noble Drilling was granted early termination of probation for their “robust culture of safety” as one of their paid auditors stated in a sworn affidavit.
Based on my first-hand experiences, the USCG has prioritized politics, cronyism, corporate pandering and their own self-preservation over mariner safety. This puts the mariner’s safety at risk since management knows there will be no repercussions for their illegal, unsafe and/or disingenuous conduct.
The unfortunately reality is that until regulatory authorities start enforcing the law and holding management and mariners accountable and responsible for illegal and unsafe conduct nothing will change.
Unfortunately it makes sound financial management to blame the mariner. Finding the management’s team responsible for any act or omission can mean the organisation being unable to limit their liabilities.
Having sat through enough mission statements, audits and paper exercises before the start of a drill programme I’ve seen many fine words on paper that if they had been followed to the letter would have caused numerous delays. Human nature is in the end predictable, even if we don’t like the result.
I would disagree quite strongly with both of you. either the NTSB or MAIB blame mariners, I have had more direct in involvement with the TSB. It has been my observation and experience blame is specifically avoided by these bodies.
However I do agree you. Other Mariners often blame Mariners. Often having formed their on conclusion after reading a report from the NTSB or MAIB.
Not blaming does not mean not criticizing. Or coming to a conclusion a Mariner made an error. Or coming to a conclusion a policy practice or procedure was not carried out appropriately or even as in a recent case minimum legal requirements for keeping the watch were not followed.
The USCG MCA TC ect or whatever jurisdictions police, prosecutors may decide in rare case to pursue criminal charges.
Other bodies like Fish and Game may pursue charges against Mariners if they find a dead shit hawk or fish in the vicinity.
Criminalizing seafarers for what sometimes is company policy does happen and appears to be where the buck stops. Even though superintendents may have full knowledge of and encourage the practice.
Occasionally a company gets fined over magic pipes. But the whistleblower gets fired.
So I don’t disagree there is a general trend to criminalize Mariners. I just don’t think it’s ok to blame the NTSB or MAIB for the opinions other Mariners form after reading a report.
The truth is all Mariners make errors. Fortunately none of mine led to anything more than slight embarrassment.
Unfortunately I’ve met quite a few Mariners who thought only incompetent idiots and neglecting their duties caused accidents. Until they were involved in one.
You may have missed a bit of nuance in the “blame game”.
At least with airplanes, you might have something like say a switch that does X and another switch that does Y right next to each other, both exactly the same kind of switch, and out of the pilot’s easy view.
You might have 10 accidents where X got turned on instead of Y and caused a major problem. The FAA/NTSB/Airlines would blame the pilots, after all you are supposed to know your airplane and if you can’t figure out which switch is which, then you need to take more time to learn the cockpit.
ALPA and their human factors committee would dig deeper and point out this switch layout was a trap that would continue to catch pilots until fixed.
real life example, one plane I flew had 4 fuel tanks and 2 fuel gauges. Switching tanks did NOT switch the gauges, you could very easily have the valves on empty tanks and the gauges on full tanks, which one guy did and I caught it just in time.
Yes, they don’t explicitly blame mariners they choose a framing and write a report. People then read the report and they blame mariners.
There is an explanation of how it’s done in Nancy Leveson’s book Engineering a Safer World. It’s a searchable pdf. Search for “Cali accident”.
Another example is the three El Faro reports, the CG, the NTSB and TOTE. I mentioned a discrepancy between the TOTE report and the others and it was pointed out that TOTE has a dog in the fight, as if it’s not obvious. NTSB and CG does as well, just not as apparent.
I’m not talking about blaming mariners after the report, I’m talking about mariners blaming themselves or former shipmates during the trial. Why? Because that’s what their lawyers advise them to do. And who pays the bills of those lawyers? Increasingly it’s the shipping companies.
Look at the economic interests of the seafarers’ defense lawyers in the Deepwater Horizon or El Faro hearings or more recently in the Wakashio.
And yes the NTSB and MAIB IS to blame not because they overtly try to criminalize the mariner but because the perverse misalignment of economic incentives is happening in their courtrooms.
And you don’t have to take my word for it. Just look what happened to Roth-Rothy the head NTSB investigators in the el faro case when he questioned this practice… he was threatened and pressured to retire which is all documented in Rachel Slade’s book Into The Raging Sea.
John Konrad’s last paragraph reinforces my post of yesterday regarding the USCG’s impotence and refusal to hold corporate management accountable and responsible, in addition to the mariner. That particular section of Rachel Slade’s book,“Into The Raging Sea,” that documents the questioning from the lead NTSB Investigator, Tom Roth-Rothy, was very telling. Roth-Rothy is trying to get answers from TOTE “management” and USCG “Captain” Jason Neubauer is more concerned about pandering to the bruised ego of a TOTE corporate executive and TOTE’s lawyers. Neubauer serves Roth-Rothy up to these corporate attorneys because they didn’t like his line of questioning. It’s speaks volumes that the lead USCG “Investigator” is more concerned with pandering to corporate attorneys whose clients corporate culture contributed to the deaths of 33 people. Roth-Rothy, left and/or “retired” from the NTSB very shortly thereafter this occurred.This is documented in the book and it is a textbook example of the warped priorities of the USCG. The former USCG sector commander for Jacksonville, USCG “Captain” Jeff Dixon, retired from the USCG and went to work for TOTE almost immediately after leaving the USCG. He is now the President of TOTE Services. What an incredible coincidence. Mr. Dixon was sector commander when the “El Faro” sailed with inspection deficiencies. It is also known that Mr. Dixon, while still with the USCG, gave a stand down order when traveling inspectors were being too aggressive on an inspection of the “El Yunque,” sister ship to the “El Faro.” This stand down order occurred several months after the “El Faro” sank. This conduct illustrates very clearly that even despite the loss of 33 people on the “El Faro” that the USCG and Mr. Dixon have the safety of the mariner and vessel as their number one priority.
Unfortunately, there seems to be an abundance of mariners who are willing to put their fellow shipmates at risk because they believe it will make them more valuable in the eyes of management. Whether it be by their direct testimony in a legal proceeding (this occurred during the Court proceedings regarding the sinking of the “Marine Electric” and is documented in the book “Until The Sea Shall Free Them,”) or, more directly, by their illegal and disingenuous conduct on the vessel itself as my former relief did. In my opinion, mariners, and in particular Captains, who will put the safety of their crews at risk for their own personal gain are not worthy of possessing a license.
Leveson’s law is a great tool. I wish it was required in ERM and BRM training so they could use it to better coordinate risk management with the corporations that give them their marching orders, supply the equipment to do the job etc.
A brief summation can be found here.
