Fire at Sea ... on live TV
It was a cruise marketers worst nightmare. Hours of continuing live television coverage of pillars of smoke billowing from the stern of a sleek white cruise liner, complete with captions flashing "Cruise ship terror" and the like...
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But, based on preliminary reports, it now looks as though Carnival and the crew of the Ecstasy can commend themselves on handling the July 20, 1998 fire incident in an exemplary way. The bare bones of what happened, as given in a Coast Guard Seventh District statement, are that Coast Guard Group Miami personnel were notified of a fire coming from the stern of the Ecstasy at 5:30 p.m. The Coast Guard unit established communications with the cruise ship and was informed the fire was under control and no assistance was requested. A Coast Guard 41-foot rescue boat from Station Miami Beach arrived on scene at about 5:40 p.m., and began to fight the fire. Cruise ship personnel contacted Coast Guard units, requesting fire-fighting assistance. Coast Guard units and local agencies were dispatched to assist at 6:00 p.m. These units consisted of three 41-ft rescue boats from Station Miami Beach and Fort Lauderdale, two 82-ft patrol boats from Fort Pierce and Fort Lauderdale, three 110-ft patrol boats from Miami Beach, two HH-60 Jayhawk helicopters from Air Station Clearwater, and an HH-65 Dolphin Helicopter from Air Station Miami. Local assisting agencies consisted of four Coastal tugs, Miami Beach Fire Rescue personnel, Miami Dade Fire Rescue personnel, Florida Marine Patrol and other agencies. The fire was reportedly extinguished at 7:15 p.m. All units were on scene at about 6:25 p.m. Coast Guard Marine Safety Office personnel were transferred on board the ship at 6:24 p.m. Miami Dade and Miami Beach Fire-fighters were also transferred on board to prevent a re-flash of the fire. The fire-fighters also administered medical attention to passengers and crewmembers suffering from mild smoke inhalation. Approximately 60 passengers and crewmembers were bused to a nearby medical facility after the Ecstasy moored in Miami at 2:00 a.m. DRAMATIC NEWS PICTURES
Parenthetically, Marine Log has learned, news helicopters were flying so close to the ship that the sound of their rotors made it difficult for some passengers to hear safety announcements. The Coast Guard may now consider putting air exclusion, as well as boat exclusion, zones around ships in a similar situation in future. According to Tim Gallagher, spokesman for Carnival Cruise Lines, the first internal alarm rang at 5:20 p.m., followed by the first public announcement to passengers of "a situation on the aft deck" ten minutes later. Passengers were asked to move forward and avoid the rear deck, he said. The first ship alarm to the 2,575 passengers sounded about 6 p.m., Gallagher said, and they were ordered to emergency stations. In press reports, some passengers said that they told stewards of smoke entering cabins through air conditioner ducts as early as 4:40 p.m. What actually happened? A welder's spark in a laundry room may have ignited lint within ducting, surmised Carnival president Bob Dickinson and an "explosive-type" fire then quickly spread to the outside mooring deck, two decks above. There, nylon rope ignited, giving off considerable smoke. Dickinson's theory remains to be confirmed by a National Transporation Safety Board and Coast Guard investigation that is now taking place. However, once the alarm was triggered, fire doors, according to the Coast Guard and Carnival, were locked down within minutes. This closed off the entire aft section of the ship behind one of five bulkheads that divide the vessel into six fire zones. The crew then dampered the air-conditioning system to try to starve the fire of oxygen it needed. That tactic failed because the mooring deck is open, said Carnival spokesman Gallagher. "The reality is what made this fire so stubborn is that it was an exterior fire," he said. With the fire contained, the crew got on with fighting it. The Miami Herald quoted Keith Bowermaster, a spokesman for Miami-Dade Fire Rescue, as saying that ten rescue workers who boarded the ship shortly before 8 p.m. found the fire under control. "They got on board and they found out the crew of the cruise ship, the tugboats and the Coast Guard did a tremendous job fighting the fire," said Bowermaster. The ship had "ample firefighting equipment, more than enoughíí to combat the blaze." Though constructed in 1991, Ecstasy meets the latest SOLAS fire safety requirements which went into effect last year. These included sealing of major stairways from flammable material and installation of low-level lighting, smoke-detection systems and remote control fire doors. According to Dickinson, Carnival designs its ships to exceed the requirements. The Ecstasy, for instance, has an internal sprinkler system that the regulations will not require until 2005, as well a fire control box, fire suppression equipment, fire extinguishers and smoke detectors in cabins [These detectors alert the bridge, not the passengers. Some safety advocates believe that passengers should be directly alerted; many in the cruise industry think that this could create a panic situation in some instances]. If the fire was a test of tougher new fire safety standards on cruise ships, Commander Bill Uberti, executive officer of the Coast Guard's Miami marine safety office told the Herald, the Ecstasy passed. ìIt worked like it was supposed to.íí Even without assistance from shore, Uberti agreed with Carnival officials that the fire would have been contained. "What would happen if this was out at sea and we didn't have tugs? It would have burned itself out." The Ecstasy fire was also a test of the ISM Code. Captain David L. Wood, Carnival's director, fleet safety and environmental protection, has spent more than two and a half years in developing and implementing the lineís ISM Code. The fact that no deaths or serious injuries resulted from the Ecstasy fire and that there was no mass passenger panic would seem to demonstrate that, in Carnival's case, the ISM Code works.
In a fire emergency, English-speaking members of the ship's team--including dancers--are assigned to duties such as passenger traffic direction
NTSB INVESTIGATION A National Transportation Safety Board advisory notice issued on July 23, 1998 noted that its investigation was continuing and that its investigators would remain on the ship, which was then about to be moved to Newport News for repair, until their work was completed. Reporting on its interview with the Ecstasy's master, Captain Vittorio Sartori, who has been a ship's master for 30 of his 52-year career at sea the NTSB said he had told investigators that at no time during the incident was he attempting to evade the jurisdiction of the Coast Guard or the Safety Board. His immediate concern was to position the ship in such a manner as to keep the stern section downwind so that smoke would not encroach on the passengers and crew. Captain Sartori said that at about 5:10 p.m., several fire alarms sounded on the bridge, first from the main laundry, then almost immediately thereafter from the stern thruster room, the steering gear room and the Riviera Deck aft (mooring deck). When the Coast Guard called him, he told them that his crew was checking the situation to ascertain whether assistance was required. According to the Captain, at the time that the Coast Guard told him to move the ship directly to an anchorage, the Ecstasy's engines shut down and it lost power to the steering gear and stern thruster. The Safety Board interviewed the two welders who were in the laundry room at about the time the fire broke out. They said that, while they were there to repair a broken bolt on a piece of machinery used to dry and fold bed sheets, they had not yet begun welding when the fire started. The NTSB advisory said that the bolt and an associated piece of metal would be removed for laboratory examination to determine whether there was any evidence of any recent welding to them. During an NTSB examination of the laundry room, access panels were removed from the laundry's vent system. Some evidence of fire was detected, but investigators were still looking for potential ignition sources. The NTSB advisory noted that propulsion control cabling that passed through the area of the major fire on the aft mooring deck was found to have been burned through. By the time that the NTSB notice was issued, that cabling had been rerouted and propulsion power restored to the ship. Besides cable damage, the port steering room sustained heat damage, disabling the equipment in that room. Sources tell Marine Log that the repair bill at Newport News could be in the region of $20 million. The NTSB's ongoing investigation will include a mail survey of a random sampling of 300 passengers to collect their experiences and observations during the fire emergency. NTSB investigations typically take 12 months or so before issuance of a final report. Safety recommendations can be issued at any time. The most recent previous cruise ship fire investigated by the NTSB involved the Universe Explorer in 1996, when five crew members died from smoke inhalation and 55 crewmembers and one passenger sustained injuries. ML |
Externally, flames and smoke were clearly visible,
gushing from the rear of the ship. That made for dramatic news coverage
by local TV stations, (including WSVN, Channel 7, which allowed us to use
the still shown here) and, according to broadcast interviews, some passengers
said they saw the fire on TV before they heard any announcement on board
the ship. 
Carnival has a full-time director
of firefighting, Dr Tony Munioz. Its planning for fire emergencies not
only includes the training and preparedness of the firefighting teams,
but provides for the cruise director to be on the bridge making announcements
to the passengers. Passenger traffic direction in areas such as stairwells
is assigned to English-speaking personnel, such as social hosts, dancers
and Steiner beauty salon staff.