Page 24: of Marine News Magazine (February 2024)

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Feature

Passenger Vessel Safety

Any upcoming meetings?

inspected passenger vessels in the U.S-? ag ? eet.

• Of these, 530 are already required by domestic In early January, NTSB was asked about its working re- law to have SMSs, in accordance with lationship with the USCG.

International Maritime Organization (IMO) treaty Jennifer Gerbis is on NTSB’s media relations team. In obligations, because they transport more than 12 an email she said NTSB and USCG staff work on nearly passengers on foreign voyages. 50 cases each year. Agency personnel are in daily contact, • From 2017 to 2019, there were a total of six she said, with formal meetings twice a year. “The level of vessel-related fatal accidents on passenger vessels, cooperation is the best it has ever been,” she commented. resulting in 55 deaths, 34 from the Conception. Gerbis said SMS for passenger vessels remains a top • Five of the six fatal incidents, and 54 of the 55 NTSB issue. “We look forward to a USCG rulemaking on deaths, involved vessels without an SMS in place. this as soon as possible,” she said.

Hence the USCG’s core question: how many and what Other top NTSB issues include a recommendation for kind of accidents and fatalities might be prevented by voyage data recorders (VDR), or similar devices, on board requiring SMSs on some subset of passenger vessels? An passenger vessels. It’s NTSB’s position that recordings of

SMS is not a casual check-the-box safety review. An SMS conversations and parametric data are preferable to inter- program presents signi? cant costs for small business vessel viewing participants whose memories can be incorrect; operators. A New York ferry operator, for example, wrote better, objective data will produce better reports and safety in response to the USCG’s 2021 SMS Notice, that he did recommendations. Another recommendation: provide not want to be dismissive of safety and documenting safe shipboard employees with personal locator beacons (PLB) operations, but “a full blown SMS can be very costly to to aid in the location of persons in the water.

many small passenger vessel operations while inheriting One idea suggested after the USCG’s 2021 SMS notice (sic) a blow to their bottom line income.” He commented was that smaller passenger vessel operators could adopt a further: “Don’t drag this ? eet into the same discussion of program similar to the Flagship SMS established in 2017 the deep draft ? eet.” for members of the Passenger Vessel Association (PVA).

Responders battle a ? re that broke out aboard the passenger vessel Spirit of Norfolk in Norfolk, Va., in June 2022. More than 100 passengers, the vast majority of them school children, were rescued

Edward Wargo / U.S. Coast Guard 24 | MN February 2024