An L.A. Times review of federal documents shows the National Transportation Safety Board has repeatedly called for stronger regulations aimed at improving safety following serious boat fires, only to see the Coast Guard not implement them.
The Conception dive boat accident that killed 34 people on Labor Day was one of the worst maritime disasters in California history, but the safety lapses that led to it were hardly unprecedented.
Jennifer Homendy of the National Transportation Safety Board and other officials leave Santa Barbara Harbor depart after touring a ship.It repeatedly has called on the Coast Guard to require small vessels to establish procedures for conducting regular inspections and reporting maintenance and repair needs for all of a boat’s systems — including the hull and mechanical and electrical operations.
In September, a fire broke out on the Conception during a weekend diving excursion in the Channel Islands, killing everyone who had been sleeping below deck. Since the accident, investigators have cited some of the same deficiencies pointed out by the NTSB in other boat fires: lack of crew training and inadequate safety measures and maintenance.
The results from the NTSB investigation into the Labor Day disaster could take 18 months to complete. Agents from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are trying to determine what sparked the blaze.Still, a growing belief throughout the boat industry is that the Conception fire could finally lead to safety rules that the NTSB has been proposing for years.
In the last 19 years, several fires erupted on ferries and passenger boats that led the NTSB to make numerous safety recommendations for smaller vessels. But the Coast Guard has not implemented many of them, and rejected some. In the years that followed, according to a 2006 NTSB report, a series of preventive maintenance failures led to fires on similar vessels.
The vessel, the NTSB concluded in December, had erupted in flames because a lack of preventive maintenance had led to pump failure and engine overheating. The agency identified several shortcomings in maintenance schedules for the boat’s systems and said the owners had failed to install fire detection equipment in unmanned spaces.
While boat operators across Southern California said they expect the NTSB to issue a slew of new recommendations in the wake of the Conception tragedy, the Passenger Vessel Assn. — which represents hundreds of mid- and large-size boat operators nationwide — has tried to distance itself from the incident.
And after the 2010 Deep Water Horizon oil rig explosion left 11 dead and spilled about 206 million gallons of oil, a Department of Homeland Security Inspector General’s report found the Coast Guard did not have “adequate processes to investigate, take corrective actions and enforce federal regulations related to the reporting of marine accidents.”In 2018, Rear Adm.
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