The brochures portray stern, nautical-looking types; seafarers all; and we all feel we are in good, competent hands. But then, an accident...

The Olympic Voyager is only the latest.

..then we get the after-action reports from passengers like those on the Olympic Voyager posted here..

..and we realize that the organization of the ship, in cases of emergency is just one step away from disaster.

HAL:
.. centuries of tradition touted..
and the massive foul-ups at the time of the Prinsendam Fire.

Cunard
...you should talk to my cousin who was a passenger on QE2 at the time of the boiler feedwater fouling and the subsequent "rescue" by
Sea Venture..

And there are others ... some of which have been reported on these pages...

Makes confidence waver a bit.

Right?

[ 10-14-2002: Message edited by: Cambodge ]

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Originally posted by Cambodge:
HAL:
.. centuries of tradition touted..
and the massive foul-ups at the time of the Prinsisdam Fire.

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Passenger reports, press reports, and USCG findings were published here, in detail, a year or so ago..I cannot track them down now..

I have always been impressed by how well the average person does react when suddenly put in unususual and maybe even dangerous situations, and I'm referring particularly to ordinary crew.

Your own rhetoric re the Prinsendam is a case in point. If there had been "massive foul-ups" in those sort of conditions there would have been a large loss of life not just one person suffering a heart attack.

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Originally posted by topgun:
Fair speculation. I have often looked down the stairwells after lifeboat drill and seen the masses inching back down to their cabins.
Surely in reverse and under real emergency conditions chaos might set in and many be trampled.
No degree of crew training would stop the mass panic.

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And not only after the drill!!!!!!! Too many passengers attend the drill and pay absolutely no attention to what is being said - many long time cruisers still have no idea how the lifejacket should be worn - and then they are the first timers - armed with cell phones they are more interested in telling everyone they can call that they are on board, have eaten, had drinks, etc. etc. Then there are the folks who immediately untie the jacket and leave the tapes dangling.............

Those are the people who will almost certainly panic in any emergency - and then blame the Officers and crew!

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Originally posted by Dolphins:
Can it be that the reason some people don't pay too much attention is because they have done it so many times before?

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The worst offenders have likely never done it before... The clueless first-timers are the worst offenders.

I don't think we're complaining about the experienced cruisers who know the drill (no pun intended), who go through the motions without paying all that much attention... It's the people who go around treating it like a joke, and stopping others from being able to really figure out what's going on that cause the real problems.

I am refering to the behavior of the ship's company in emergencies, not the panicked passengers...who would be expected to do just that..panic.

I refer to the shameful behavior of officers and crew. These actions are a matter of record.

Absence of information, leaving passengers without a clue as to what is happening; service staff (waiters and such) making the first dash to the lifeboats (Andrea Doria); "me first" atttitudes of officers (Oceanos); lack of logical evacuation procedures (Prinsendam); abandonment of passengers in lifeboat procedures (QE2 Bermuda --and yes it was my cousin); and many more.

I remember that the "Ship's Officer" (seasoned seaman and all that) on our lifeboat drill on QE2 in 1978 was the sweet young thing who directed the Bingo games and did not have the proverbial clue!

I may have made my point again,

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Originally posted by Cambodge:
I think my point is being missed.

I am refering to the behavior of the ship's company in emergencies, not the panicked passengers...who would be expected to do just that..panic.

I refer to the shameful behavior of officers and crew. These actions are a matter of record.

Absence of information, leaving passengers without a clue as to what is happening; service staff (waiters and such) making the first dash to the lifeboats (Andrea Doria); "me first" atttitudes of officers (Oceanos); lack of logical evacuation procedures (Prinsendam); abandonment of passengers in lifeboat procedures (QE2 Bermuda --and yes it was my cousin); and many more.

I remember that the "Ship's Officer" (seasoned seaman and all that) on our lifeboat drill on QE2 in 1978 was the sweet young thing who directed the Bingo games and did not have the proverbial clue!

I may have made my point again,

..or I may not.

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OOOPS hit the wrong button

I wanted to say that Lifeboat drill on the QE2 (September 2000 from Southampton) was a total SNAFU - Many guests were still on board - ours included - and absolutely no guidance was given to where we were supposed to assemble - some lounge or other - now there was panic -by guests - they had to find their way off the ship - very poor organization as 'passengers in the know' headed for said Muster Station. Poor, poor show, Cunard!

[ 10-15-2002: Message edited by: Green ]

In my opinion, nothing could be further from the truth! The cruise ship industry, and before that the transatlantic passenger trade, have made amazing strides forward in terms of safety. I don't think there is an industry out there that has made such progress in safety issues.

Where as accidents do continue to happen, they are few and far between with very minor consequences in most cases.

A great example is the fire on Carnival Cruises' Ecstacy a few years back. Carnival recieved much criticism and bad press over its handling of the fire. Yet no one died. No one was seriously injured. The ship was not lost. In fact, pretty much everything worked the way it should. I clearly recall the damage to the Ecstacy's aft end. The area of the fire was very clearly contained by the fire doors ... the scorch marks on the hull stop suddenly at the same point on all decks.

There were of course were mistakes made and lessons learned, and these debates serve a very important purpose - helps prevent the industry from becoming too complacent.

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Originally posted by Cambodge:
I remember that the "Ship's Officer" (seasoned seaman and all that) on our lifeboat drill on QE2 in 1978 was the sweet young thing who directed the Bingo games and did not have the proverbial clue!

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IIRC from the programme 'Cruises from Hell' not so long ago, that on both Sun Vista and Achille Lauro it was the same trio of band members [1 female, 2 males] that were amongst the last to leave after having helped with the evacuations.

My guess for last loss of a modern passenger ship with fatalities would have to be Herald of Free Enterprise in the 1980s.

Estonia was not especially old but was being run by a second- or third-tier operator.

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Originally posted by kaiser:
Just a clarification on my question ... I'm only referring to ocean liners/cruise ships - not passenger ferries ...

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The Andrea Doria. The Mikhail Lermontov, though her sinking was very unsettling, did not lose any passengers. The sole casualty was a crew member caught below decks. The Andrea Doria however lost 48 people, most of them passengers. The Stockholm lost 4 crew members. I might be a little off with the numbers (I'm relying on memory) but the gist of it is correct.

My point is, is that the last time a modern liner was lost with fatalities amongst its passengers was in July of 1956! That's nearly 50 years ago. That I believe is an amazing record considering the numbers of people cruising every year.

And the few disasters that do happen, while tragic, are rare and are on vessels that the average cruiser would never consider sailing on. With the exception of those members of Cruise Talk who have a great deal of fondness for classic ships (including myself) most of the posters on this board would never pay to cruise on a ship like the Sun Vista or Achille Lauro.

Main stream and elite cruising are very safe ways of travelling! And budget cruising, while a little riskier is still far safer than say, crossing the street or travelling by car or train.

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Originally posted by gohaze:
Don't want to be picky but the Dara of BI sank in the Persian Gulf in 1962 after a bomb explosion. 236 fatalities.

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However the Dara was kinda of a ... can't quite find the words. She was a passenger liner (though by no means a luxury liner) that had a fairly good deal of cargo carrying capacity and her accomodations were for the most part quite basic. I think she was more of an immigrant liner or perhaps a better description would be an "ocean ferry".

I hope the day never comes that there is a mass panic on one of the new mega-ships. Imagine a fire the scale of the one on the Diamond Princess.

I wouldn't worry about how well trained the crew are or how state of the art the life saving equipment is. What I worry about is how I am going to make my way to my muster station past 2300 panicing passengers. Human nature can be a scary thing!!!

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Originally posted by Michael534:
Though she wasn't a modern ship, I believe passengers were lost on the Lakonia.

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More than not modern, she was an ageing vessel seemingly ripe for trouble, with outdated lifesaving equipment, etc.

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I hope the day never comes that there is a mass panic on one of the new mega-ships. Imagine a fire the scale of the one on the Diamond Princess.

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It seems that would be highly unlikely since theoretically the fire sprinklers would have extinguished the fire before it got out of hand, the fire doors would be closed, etc. Diamond Princess must be viewed as a construction site and not as an operational ship, and I can only hope that it was this that made the fire so large.

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I wouldn't worry about how well trained the crew are or how state of the art the life saving equipment is. What I worry about is how I am going to make my way to my muster station past 2300 panicing passengers.

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