Page 18: of Marine News Magazine (February 2023)

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Column

Safety Equipment

Personal Locator Beacons Improve the Chance of Rescue at Sea

By Morgan Turrell, Director, NTSB Of? ce of Marine Safety about for 4 hours in 50-mph freezing winds and 30-foot

New Year’s Eve seas. Search-and-rescue (SAR) operations, hampered by is a time of celebration and remembrance. Three years ago, the poor weather conditions and unsure of the survivors’ on December 31, 2019, as the new year was being rung in location, struggled to ? nd them. Eventually, a Coast Guard across the lower 48 states, a tragedy was playing out in icy helicopter rescued the two crewmembers, but the remain-

Alaskan waters. The ? shing vessel Scandies Rose, with sev- ing ? ve were never found.

en crew members aboard, encountered severe icing condi- Our investigation into this accident found that the Scan- tions and high winds and waves as it transited from Kodiak dies Rose’s emergency position indicating radio beacon to ? shing grounds in the Bering Sea. The crabber tried to (EPIRB) failed to provide a position after crewmembers were make it to Sutwik Island to shelter from the storm; how- forced to abandon the vessel. The crew was left without a ever, because of the weight of the topside ice that had accu- means of communicating with SAR personnel, who, going mulated on the vessel and the force of the winds and waves, off the EPIRB information, were searching in the wrong area. the Scandies Rose capsized and sank before reaching safety. As a result of this situation, we reiterated a 2017 recommen-

Two crewmembers managed to climb out of the cap- dation (M-17-45) to require mariners to have personal loca- sized ship and swim to a life raft, where they were tossed tor beacons (PLBs). This recommendation asks the Coast

Guard to require that all personnel employed on vessels in coastal, Great Lakes, and ocean service be provided with a

Ocean Signal -

PLB. Unfortunately, this recommendation is still open.

A PLB is a personal electronic device that transmits a sur-

PLB3 - 004 vivor’s location on or in the water to the Search and Rescue

Satellite-Aided Tracking system during an emergency. It’s designed to be carried in a person’s life vest (or elsewhere on their body) and manually activated when the wearer is in distress. PLBs continuously update a survivor’s location.

The Scandies Rose is one of several notable marine casu- alties the NTSB has investigated in the last 5 years involv- ing mariners lost at sea in which PLBs could have made a difference. These casualties highlight the critical safety need for PLBs to aid in SAR operations at sea. We’ve been recommending that all mariners use PLBs since our inves- tigation of the October 2015 sinking of the cargo ship El

Faro, which sank in the Atlantic Ocean about 40 nautical miles northeast of Acklins and Crooked Island, Bahamas, after sailing directly into the path of Hurricane Joaquin.

The entire crew of 33 aboard perished.

Ocean Signal 18 | MN February 2023