As we continue into 2020, we’d thought we take some time to look back at some of the notable maritime industry news stories of 2019:
Slips & Falls Are The Leading Cause of Maritime Accidents According to New Study
Slips and falls are the most frequent type of accidents at sea according to a recently released study of injury claims by the American Club, ABS and Lamar University. The project analyzed 12,000 injury records with a cost of $246 million, and some 100,000 near miss reports from 2013-2017. The group’s long-term objective is developing recommendations aimed at improving the day-to-day safety of maritime personnel, both afloat and ashore, through sharing the results of data analyses derived from this study.
According to their research, the leading causes of maritime accidents are:
Read a summary of the report here.
Notable U.S. Shipwrecks of 2019
Shipwrecks happen every day around the world. Here are some of the most notable involving U.S. vessels in 2019:
Wreck of a ship on the Skeleton Coast in Namibia. The coast is named after whale and seal bones which covered the shore when the whaling industry was still active, as well as the skeletal shipwrecks caused by rocks offshore in fog. More than a thousand vessels of various sizes litter the coast.
Source: Wikipedia
34 Killed In Diving Boat Fire off California Coast
On September 2, the dive boat Conception was anchored in Platts Harbor off Santa Cruz Island, when it caught fire and sank in 64 feet of water. At the time, the Conception was carrying 39 persons, 6 of which were crew. Thirty-three passengers and one crewmember died; five crewmembers were rescued.
Read more about it here.
1851 Maritime Law Back In The News
On December 3, a federal judge ruled that the Shipowners Limitation of Liability Act of 1851 does not protect a company from making payments to families of the 17 people who were killed aboard a tourist boat that sank on Table Rock Lake near Branson, MI in July 2018.
Read more about it here.
On a related note, Truth Aquatics Inc., the company that owned the dive boat Conception mentioned in the story above, is asking a judge to eliminate its financial liability or lower it to zero, citing the 1851 law.
Read more about it here.
Kirby Corporation fined $2.2 million dollars for environmental damages
The Kirby Corporation, the largest operator of tank barges in America, was fined $2.2 million for the environmental damages caused by the sinking of the ATB tug Nathan E. Stewart off Bella Bella, B.C. in 2016. The company pled guilty to three charges of depositing a substance harmful to migratory birds, depositing a harmful substance in a fishery and operating a tug in a pilotage area without a pilot.
Read more here.
Deadly Summer On Gulf Oil Rigs
The summer months saw a spike in accidental deaths aboard oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. On July 1, two people were killed and another injured in an accident at Shell Oil’s Auger Tension. On June 1, an employee fell approximately 90 feet on Chevron’s Green Canyon Block 205, Platform “A”. And on May 29, a nighttime production operator was reported missing and is presumed to have fallen through a grating on Renaissance Offshore’s Eugene Island Block 331.
Read more here.
Runaway Barges Damage Interstate 10 Bridge Outside Houston, TX
The Interstate 10 Bridge over the San Jacinto River was closed for repairs after it was struck by two of nine barges that had come loose from their moorings during Tropical Storm Imeldo.
Read more here.
Supreme Court Weighs in On Two Maritime Law Cases
The Supreme Court of the United States weighed in on two cases affecting the rights of injured seamen:
In the case of Atlantic Sounding Co., Inc., et al. v. Townsend, the Supreme Court held 6-3 punitive damages are available to seamen in claims against their employers when the employer willfully refuses to pay maintenance and cure benefits.
Read more here.
In the case of Air and Liquid Systems Corp. v. DeVries, the Supreme Court affirmed the decision of a lower court holding that the manufacturers of asbestos-dependent equipment used on Navy ships can be held liable to sailors who became ill because of their contact with the asbestos.
Read more here.
18 Month Old Chloe Wiegand Dies After Falling From a Cruise Ship Window
In one of the most tragic stories of the year, 18 month old Chloe Wiegand died after falling from an open window in the “H2O Zone kids’ water-park” aboard the Royal Caribbean cruise ship Freedom of the Seas. Her family recently filed suit against the cruise line, alleging that Royal Caribbean was negligent in failing to secure the window.
Read more here.