El Faro - 2015
The Incident
On 1st October 2015 the SS El Faro sank and tragically, all onboard perished.
29th September - El Faro departed Jacksonville, Florida, USA bound for San Juan, Puerto Rico. TS Joaquin was developing and heading towards to Bahamas.
30th September
0600 - Weather and routing was discussed using metrological information that was at least 6 hours old despite the availability of more recent data.
0624 - Course altered slightly southward to avoid storms track
0625 - Sat C broadcast advice received that Joaquin would become a Category 1 Hurricane within 24 hours but the Captain and Chief mate expected to avoid the eye area and experience only approximately 40-45 knot winds.
0711 - Captain noted anemometer wasn’t working properly
0739 - NHC announced Jaoquin had intesified to Cat 1 hurricane.
1st October
0120 - Captain was made aware of the further intensification of Jaoquin, but no change to course made.
0340 - Second mate changed course to steer further north to adjust for wind pushing ship to the south. Ship began suffering from windheel.
0409 - Captain on bridge requested correction of starboard list by transferring water to port side ramp tank.
0518 - Despite corrections of course the vessel still had a pronounced list.
0543 - Flooding of cargo hold 3 as a result of an open scuttle.
0554 - Captain turns ship to port to create a port list. The list angle results in the inability for engine lube oil to be transferred from the sump to the engine. Due to a low oil level the oil surface drops below the inlet feed pipe which is set off-centre from the sump.
0613 - Propulsion lost
0659 - Designated person ashore contacted by captain
0714 - Cargo in hold breaks sea water inlet pipes used for fire supression.
0727 - General Alarm sounded
0729- Abandon ship ordered
Findings
The NTSB report can be found on their website here
BOQA
From a BOQA perspective this is not necessarily a classic case of where there might have been precursors to spot prior to this accident, apart from the low oil levels and failure of the anemometer, but it does show where there is considerable advantage to be gained from a live data feed from your vessels and being able to compare in real time live data against your SOPs and the vessels current position. Not only would it trigger alerts onshore when there is a problem but it would give valuable insight to everyone involved who are trying to mitigate the incident both on the vessel and onshore. For accident investigation the live data and historic data is available immediately to view whilst an attempt is made to recover the VDR.
Using BOQA you can set SOPs against Oil Levels, Meteorological Conditions, Swell, Max Wave Height, List, Heel and even watertight door/hatch condition if recorded. This allows real-time management and alerts of a deteriorating situation. The hydrological and meteorological conditions could also be transmitted to the relevant authorities to aid better forecasting.
To summarise, BOQA would allow an “intervention” point where a bad situation or the effects of a poor decision can be bought to the attention of and managed by all available resources rather than just those onboard the vessel.
El Faro memorial plaque image courtesy and copyright property of Andrzej Otrebski and used under Creative Commons Licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Andrzej many thanks from us for the use of this image.