Speaking at an Asia Maritime Breakfast Briefing panel on casualty response, TMC Marine md Simon Burthem said: “Managing maritime casualties is a sophisticated and complicated exercise but the expertise is there.”
The risks are not small. Citing figures from the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA), Burthem noted that in 2016 there were some 3,296 casualties of which 91 were very serious, 31 ships were lost, there were 976 injuries which resulted in 115 fatalities and 125 flag investigations.
The risk of escalation can come from injury to or the safety of personnel; dramatic changes in the casualty’s condition; changes in the casualty’s circumstances; pollution, and this can come not just from the traditional sources such as bunkers but also vexatious cargoes; stakeholder pressure; weather; failure of response and breakdown of equipment on either the casualty or the responding vessels.
Best practice to deal with vessel casualties going forward is to have a cooperative agreement already in place and appoint an Emergency Response Service (ERS) consultant.
“In our view it’s best practice and duly diligent to appoint a consultant in advance to do exactly the same as you do with classification but to go one step further,” said Burthem.
In this way, a relationship would already have been established and practice drills held, building confidence between the parties. With no delay in finding or releasing information and ship specific data already modelled there is no delay in starting work on the casualty immediately and preventing escalation, Burthem concluded.
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