June 9, 2021
The U.K. Marine Accident Investigation Branch says its too early say what exactly is causing the increasing number of container loss incidents in the North Pacific Ocean or whether these incidents could have wider implications for the container shipping sector.
The MAIB highlighted recent cargo loss incidents along with other marine casualties involving UK vessels worldwide or foreign vessels in UK territorial waters in its annual marine casualty report for 2020, providing an overview of accident reports and recommendations the MAIB issued throughout the calendar year.
In 2020, the MAIB published two investigation reports into the collapse of container stacks on large container ships, both of which were transiting the North Pacific Ocean in heavy weather.
(Photo: MAIB)
Substandard maintenance was found to be a major contributing factor at the root of a 2018 engine room fire aboard the DFDS ro-ro vessel Finlandia Seaways in April 2018, U.K. accident investigators found.
The Lithuanian registered vessel was in transit from Zeebrugge, Belgium to Rosyth, U.K., when it suffered a catastrophic main engine failure that caused serious structural damage to the engine and a fire in the engine room. The vessel’s third engineer, who was on duty in the engine room at the time, suffered serious smoke-related lung, kidney and eye injuries during his escape.
According to a report by the U.K. s Marine Accident Investigation Branch, the engine failure was initiated by the failure of a single component, and the standard and management of maintenance carried out by the vessel operator’s maintenance support contractor was a significant causal factor.