Tag Archives: fire onboard

A Letter from Adolfo Perez – MD, Carnival Cruise Lines UK & Ireland

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21 February 2013

Dear Valued Travel Partner,

We realise many of you have been following last week’s events on the Carnival Triumph and I wanted to take this opportunity to provide you with some information.

Let me begin by saying that all of us at Carnival deeply regret the hardship our guests had to face during their days on board the ship. Our number one concern was to ensure the safety and welfare of our guests and crew and to get them home as soon as possible. Our shipboard and shore side teams worked tirelessly to take care of them and minimise their discomfort and inconvenience. We also focused on making sure their loved ones had a direct link to our Family Support Centre where they could obtain round the clock information on their family and friends on board.

Now that all the guests are safely home, our efforts are firmly focused on the on-going investigation into the root cause of the fire and what measures we can take to ensure this does not happen again. These efforts are taking place in collaboration with the U.S. Coast Guard and other independent parties. We know, however, that preliminary investigations indicate the cause of the fire was the result of a leak in the fuel return line for the number 6 diesel generator.

The safety and security of our guests remains of the utmost importance to all of us here at Carnival. All our ships are safe and secure. All of them meet, and in many areas exceed, all regulatory standards. I promise we will continue to investigate in order to understand what took place and to learn what steps we can take to improve going forward.

We know that holidaymakers can choose from a vast variety of options, and that they – and you – expect a fantastic cruise holiday from us. We are very sorry that this time we did not deliver.

I really value your support for Carnival Cruise Lines, and in encouraging British holidaymakers to select a cruise on our ships. We hope you will continue to do so in the future, and we will endeavour to do everything we can to make our experiences as memorable and fun as possible for your customers.

Thank you again for your support.

Yours sincerely,

Adolfo M. Pérez
Managing Director, UK and Ireland

Carnival Cruise Lines
© 2013 Carnival Cruise Lines

Coast Guard cites fuel-line leak in Triumph fire

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Coast Guard cites fuel-line leak in Triumph fire

By Tom Stieghorst
A leaking fuel line was cited by Coast Guard officials as the likely cause of the engine-room fire that disabled the propulsion of the Carnival Triumph.

Fuel leaked from the return line of the No. 6 engine and ignited when it hit a hot surface, Lt. Commander Teresa Hatfield said in a telephone news briefing Monday.

According to published reports, Hatfield said the crew put out the fire “immediately” and it was contained to a small area.

Hatfield, who leads the Coast Guard’s Marine Casualty Investigation Team in New Orleans, said firefighters “did a very good job.”

The Bahamas is leading the investigation of the Carnival fire. The Triumph is registered in the Bahamas.

Hatfield said the Coast Guard expects to finish its onboard work by the end of the week and estimated the investigation would take at least six months.

In cruise incident, a conservative approach

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In cruise incident, a conservative approach

By Tom Stieghorst

*InsightWhy didn’t Carnival Cruise Lines try to get passengers off the powerless Carnival Triumph?

To understand that, it may help to look at another cruise mishap that was overshadowed in the U.S. last week by the Triumph.

In the Canary Islands, five crew members of the Thomson Majesty died in a lifeboat drill.  A cable snapped, plunging the boat 65 feet to the water.  Now imagine that same boat full of passengers.

Lowering lifeboats is not an especially safe activity. The Thomson Majesty episode becomes the latest example in a history of such incidents.

A 2001 study by the U.K.’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch found that 15% of all deaths involving professional seafarers involved lifeboat drills, with 12 deaths over 10 years and 87 people injured.

The problems include complicated and balky release mechanisms, inadequate maintenance and lapses in the training of crews on how to safely lower boats to the water.

Still, cruise ships tender passengers from ship to shore all the time. Why not lower the boats empty and put *TomStieghorstpassengers on that way? Marine safety experts say the risks of injury remain high. The chief risk is transferring passengers from ship to tender while wave action moves the two vessels independently. The transfer has to be done twice for each passenger, once leaving the stricken vessel and again boarding the rescue vessel, doubling the chances of injury. In addition, the evacuation would be done in open seas instead of in sheltered coves or bays that are the more typical environment of a ship-to-shore tender operation.

Nonetheless, it may be time for the cruise industry to take another look at whether a tender-rescue operation makes sense in calm seas. Working with the U.S. Coast Guard or a private rescue vessel, under the right conditions, it might be possible to remove passengers from an immobilized ship and send them back to port, sparing them the discomfort endured by those on the Triumph.

It is worth bearing in mind that no one died on the Triumph. It was a miserable week but not a tragic one.  A non-emergency ship evacuation could go well, or it could introduce additional variables beyond the line’s control; in the worst-case scenario, a death or a serious injury.

Something must be done. Laws should be changed. That’s a refrain I heard last week from travel agents. In cases like the Triumph, the image of the cruise line and the cruise industry in general takes a beating.

But whatever reforms are undertaken have to be responsible ones. And that means being truly conservative about passenger safety, and not introducing unnecessary risk.