Quote:
Originally Posted by geoleo
So the ships pilot door was open for several days as it sailed in and out of Brunswick unloading and loading and the door opening was underwater flooding the ship and no one noticed -no alarms or pumps went on and the ship sped to to 20+mph ditto it was listing -Were the crew and pilots totally buzzed out? Dont pilots doors have alarms and indicators on them? Most those I have seen have ladders to reach the door opening from the pilot boats and are well above the ships waterline. More BS excuses invented.
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The pilot door was opened shortly before the incident which occured shortly before she would have dropped her pilot. Its SOP.
You can see her position on
Google Earth - she was almost out of the river.
If you read the final report - rather than an initial report from Billy Buttfuddle who was
fishing nearby at the time - you will see the reason for the
accident. Yes it was made worse by the pilot door being open.
From the NTSB report linked by Gord above.-
3.1 Findings
1. None of the following safety issues were identified for the
accident transit: (1)
weather; (2) a transfer of ballast or
fuel; (3) the
propulsion and
steering systems; (4) the shifting of cargo within the vessel; (5) obstructions in the channel that could have caused the vessel to ground; or (6) the cargo hold fire.
2. The Golden Ray capsized because it did not possess enough righting energy to counter the port heeling moment created during the attempted execution of the 68° starboard turn at widener 11.
3. At departure from the Colonel’s Island Terminal, the Golden Ray did not meet international stability standards and possessed less stability than the chief officer calculated.
4. The chief officer made errors with the ballast tank level data entry into the shipboard stability calculation computer (LOADCOM), which led to his incorrect determination of the vessel’s stability.
5. The operator did not have a method in place to ensure that the chief officer was proficient in using the shipboard stability calculation computer (LOADCOM) to perform his duty of calculating the ship’s stability.
6. The operator’s lack of oversight and procedures for auditing and verifying the accuracy of their officers’ vessel stability calculations before departure contributed to the Golden Ray not meeting international stability standards.
7. After the Golden Ray heeled, open watertight doors on
deck 5 allowed flooding into the vessel and blocked the primary egress from the
engine room.
3.2 Probable Cause
The National Transportation Safety Board determines that
the probable cause of the capsizing of the Golden Ray was the chief officer’s error entering ballast quantities into the stability calculation program, which led to his incorrect determination of the vessel’s stability and resulted in the Golden Ray having an insufficient righting arm to counteract the forces developed during a turn while transiting outbound from the Port of Brunswick through St. Simons Sound. Contributing to the accident was G-Marine
Service Co. Ltd.’s lack of effective procedures in their safety management system for verifying stability calculations.'