Zeebrugge Ferry Disaster (1987) - Essay Example

Gopal Pottabathni 3 December 2007 Zeebrugge Ferry Disaster - Consequences. The 1980's are considered to be decade of disasters for Britain, public and professional interest in disasters was prompted by a spate of socio-technical disasters which occurred within relatively quick succession and received much media coverage and interest. Although the numbers of deaths involved were often, in comparison with other disasters, relatively small, the fact that there was a series of tragic accidents involving ordinary (often young) people doing everyday things - transport accidents, going to a football match, dying at work - heightened the sense of national shock and mourning. One of the first disasters was a fire at a soccer stadium in Bradford in May 1985. Many switched on their televisions on a Saturday afternoon for the weekly match results only to be confronted with scenes of a blazing wooden stadium and individuals, one at least on fire, running from the scene. Other disasters included an aeroplane fire at Manchester Airport during the middle of the holiday season, the sinking of a British ferry off Zeebrugge with substantial loss of life, a fire at Kings Cross, the blowing up of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie four days before Christmas, live coverage of fatal crushing at Hillsborough soccer stadium at the FA Cup semi-final and the sinking of the Marchioness pleasure boat on the River Thames during the August bank holiday weekend, 1989. [Anne Eyre, PhD] Herald of Free Enterprise is a funny name given that it was the pursuit of profit at the cost of safety that caused the accident. [www.everything2.com] The Herald of Free Enterprise, like her sister ships Pride of Free Enterprise and Spirit of Free Enterprise, was a modern ro-ro passenger/vehicle ferry designed for use on the high-volume short Dover-Calais ferry route. [www.unisa.edu.au] The British ferry was built by Schichau Unterweser in Bremerhaven, Germany, in 1980 and owned by Townsend Thoresen, and had two sister ships: Pride of Free Enterprise and Spirit of Free Enterprise. She worked the English Channel ferry routes between Dover and Calais, and Dover and Zeebrugge. [www.relativesremembered.com]. The British ferry was a roll-on-roll-off car and at the same time, a passenger ferry. The Herald of Free Enterprise had left Dover earlier that day around in the morning. The standard passage was concluded late in the afternoon. The departure was delayed because of the large number of passengers, thanks to a special offer. The ship had a crew of 80 and carried 459 passengers, 81 cars, 3 buses, and 47 trucks. As the Zeebrugge harbour was small, it tool lot of time for the ship to maneuver out to the sea. The calm weather and clear view of the sea would have made a safe and pleasant journey for the passengers on any day, but it happened otherwise for the passengers of this ship. The bow door, which was the entrance to the car deck, had been left wide open which was the act of negligence of duty by the crew. In the sea not far away from the coast, the ship speeded up to 18 knots, which caused tons of water to invade into the ship's interior. The immense water mass caused imbalance, which made the ferry capsize on a sand bank just off the coast near Zeebrugge. This created kiosk among the passengers and crewmembers in the ship and panic struck when lights went off. Following this everyone on the ship in an attempt to get out of the ship fought each other. The British ferry Herald of Free Enterprise capsized on March 6, 1987 at ten past eight in the evening, resulting in deaths of 193 people, 150 passengers and 43 crewmembers, the highest death toll in the British history of death caused by vessel sinking since the time Titanic sank. [www.relativesremembered.com] Although the ship did not send an SOS signal, the rescue troops were there fast. Within three hours 360 people had been saved from the sinking ship. Belgian rescue workers arrived quickly and started saving the passengers with ships and helicopters and 408 people were saved and 50 dead bodies were taken from the Herald of Free Enterprise. [www.everything2.com] Many more peoples could have been saved, if there was any other way out to exit. The injured were transported to nearby hospitals, some in critical condition. There they were consoled by Belgian Prime Minister Wilfried Martens, Belgian King Baudouin and Queen Fabiola and, on Saturday, by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who helicoptered to Zeebrugge. Said she: "The rescue effort was highly professional, skillful and very, very courageous." Susan Hames of Coventry reveals her tale, who was pitched overboard, said a little girl was in the water with her. The terrified youngster cried that she is going to die, and she had been such a good girl. She applied that she never told any lies. Such was the fear girl at that time. Fortunately, the girl survived. [www.time.com] Survivors told tales of heroism and almost miraculous rescues. William Cardwell was trapped on an upper deck when he saw a man carrying a baby to safety. He saw a man climbing up seats with a small baby in his teeth. Cardwell had been trying to break through a window to escape when the man with the baby came up along with two other children. Finally a helicopter dropped a line, pulled up the man and child and took them to the hospital. [www.time.com]. A public inquiry was enforced on the sinking of MS Herald of Free Enterprise in July 1987. Investigation led to put the blame entirely on ship owner Townsend Thoresen, who had purchased the ship in March from P&O. The main reason for the Townsend Thoresen guilt was the warning issued by their captains before the disaster. He had reported that the procedure to close the doors was alarmingly thoughtless and that he also had no opportunity to double-check if the doors were really closed. The assistant bosun responsible for the doors was sleeping at the time of the disaster. The investigation concluded that the Townsend Thoresen board was infected with disease of sloppiness. In October 1987, a coroner's inquest jury into the capsizing returned verdicts of unlawful killing. Many of the individuals involved at the company were prosecuted for manslaughter, as was the operating company, P&O European Ferries (Dover) Ltd. The disaster was one of a number that influenced thinking leading to the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998. Britain's Lord Justice Sheen published a report that showed the negligence and a "disease of sloppiness" in the Townsend-Thoresen Corporation. The management and the crew's negligence of checking before leaving the port caused the lives of innocent people. The Zeebrugge disaster was not really an accident. Clear as the investigation proved that it was a result of negligence, leaving the port with open doors that resulted into the rapid entrance of water to the ferry. A full investigation into the circumstances of the disaster leads inexorably to the conclusion that the underlying or cardinal faults lay higher up in the Company. The Board of Directors did not appreciate their responsibility for the safe management of their ships. The directors did not have any proper comprehension of what were their duties. There appears to have been a lack of thought about the way in which the Herald ought to have been organized for the Dover-Zeebrugge run. All concerned in management, from the members of the Board of Directors down to the junior superintendents, were guilty of fault in that all must be regarded as sharing responsibility for the failure of management. From top to bottom the body corporate was infected with the disease of sloppiness. [www.everthing2.com] Although the inquiry into the disaster clearly identified the company as being 'infected from the disease of sloppiness' and the 193 victims were found by the inquest jury to have been unlawfully killed, attempts at private prosecution of P&O European ferries for manslaughter by some of the families failed. [www.masey.ac.nz] Even after ten years, the family's frustration was compounded by the fact that although the design of Ro-Ro ferries has long been acknowledged as being fundamentally flawed, the International Maritime Organization and ferry companies have resisted and postponed implementing changes which would greatly reduce the vulnerability of ferries. The chairman of the Herald Families Association spearheaded the foundation of Disaster Action, on the basis of unsuccessful prosecution attempts following disasters, continues to campaign on the issue of corporate responsibility and accountability. It was the failure to give clear instructions about the duties of the Officers on the Zeebrugge run which contributed so greatly to the cause of this disaster. The counselor of the Company said it was not the responsibility of the Director to see that Company orders were properly drafted. It was stated that the Board of Directors must accept a heavy responsibility for their lamentable lack of directions. Individually and collectively they lacked a sense of responsibility. [www.unisa.edu.au] As the investigation progressed, it became clear that shore management took very little notice of what they were told by their Masters. There was hardly any formal meeting between Management and Senior Masters. The real complaint that appeared to the Court to be fully justified, was that the "Marine Department" did not listen to the Complaints or suggestions or wishes of their Masters. Even the case collapsed during the proceedings, what came out after the disaster was better. It gave way to new actions to be done so to prevent these things to happen. It also brought new actions to do when these things happen. In 1999 following a secondary ferry disaster; new safety measures were finally brought into effect. For the management to really know exact figures and know exactly who are on board the ship to give the family of these passengers, if ever these things happen, a notice that this certain person is missing or dead, they came up with getting passenger's details before a ship sails so that they would not only know who's on board but they would also know if the ship carried passengers over their maximum capacity. The installations of cameras are also encouraged so that the crew can check easily if the doors were properly closed or not. This would also let the crew see the activities on the different areas of the boats so if ever they detect early signs of trouble they could act immediately on it. If ever the situation is not manageable they can already send SOS signals and can already instruct the passengers on what to do. One thing that must be done at these times of crisis is that proper orientation of the passengers as on what to do if ever emergency things happen. Proper orientation as to where they would go to find emergency exits. And the structure of the ferry should include multiple emergency exits for passengers to run to in cases of emergency and not to smash windows that may add to injuries to the passengers. In this way more passengers may have been saved during that time and lesser people may have suffered from drowning if only they know where to have a safer emergency exits other than smashed windows. The aftermath of the disasters in Britain in the 1980s highlights the importance of looking both longer term and at the broader social, political, legal and organizational context of disasters in order to fully understand their psycho-social consequences as well as their causes. Others have highlighted that an organizational focus helps us to understand why lessons are frequently not learned after socio-technical disasters. The portrayal of photographs and video footage in this context is understandably distressing to relatives and survivors in the first few days. What is also significant, however, is that once such material exists it is available to be reused months or years after the event whenever a news story occurs either directly or indirectly connected to the event. [Anne Eyre, PhD] Particular photographs or film footage often become symbols of a particular disaster and are reused on an anniversary or when a similar tragedy occurs. The sudden appearance of these images can be distressing. The symbolic significance of each tragedy was reinforced by ritualistic visits to the scene by key public figures as well as public expressions of mourning, attendance at official memorial services by senior politicians and members of the royal family, and ongoing media interest in the processes of inquest and public inquiries that ensued. Few scenes of the disaster videotaped live by the media were used by film director Krzysztof Kielowski as part of the conclusion of his film Three Colours: Red. Few weeks after the sinking, the Herald was raised and renamed "Flushing Range" for a final one-way trip to Alang, India, where she was broken up in 1988. [www.everything2.com] After 20 years of that dreadful incident, more that 400 people attended to commemorate the anniversary of the sinking of Herald of Free Enterprise. They included survivors, people who lost members of their family or friends, and those involved in the immediate aftermath. [www.kent.gov.uk]. It was the valiant efforts of the crewmembers that died in the process of rescuing as many passengers during the mishap. The survivors who live after the dreadful incident owe their lives to the crew. It was put straight forward by the Rev Nicholas Stacey, Former Director of Social Sciences, Kent County Council, that the crew members suffered more acutely than any other groups of people on the ship, whose efforts were never acknowledged during the blame game. The heroes deserved to be wholly acknowledged for their selfless service during the trauma period. Such incidents never diminish from the books of history, as they are remembered for the negligible act and death of innocent people. Works Cited. Anne Eyre, PhD. More than PTSD: Proactive Responses Among Disaster Survivors The Australasian Journal of Disaster.1998. Centre for Disaster Management. School of The Built Environment. England. . Everything2.com. Herald of Free Enterprise. 15 Oct, 2002 Page: index Kent.gov.uk. Remembering the Herald of Free Enterprise 20 years on, 5 March 2007 Page: news Help: Relativesremembered.com. Memorial Page: memorialtemplates. 5 November 07 Time.com. A Tragic End for Day Trippers - TIME. 16 March 1987. Page: time/ Help: magazine. 5 November 2007 Unisa.edu.au. Herald of Free Enterprise Car Ferry Disaster. Division of Corporate Social Responsibility, Page: corpsocialresp. 5 November 2007 Read More