The Maritime Safety Act of 2018 would require access to timely weather forecasts and voyage data recorders to float free after an incident.
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has approved legislation aimed at raising safety standards for U.S.-flagged cargo ships.
The regulations contained in the Maritime Safety Act of 2018 (H.R. 6175) stem primarily from recommendations made by the U.S. Coast Guard and National Transportation Safety Board in their final reports on the 2015 sinking of the cargo ship El Faro.
Among other things, the bill would require proper inspection of ships by the U.S. Coast Guard, crews to have access to necessary safety equipment and timely weather forecasts, and voyage data recorders (VDRs) to float free after an incident.
The TOTE Maritime-operated El Faro sank Oct. 1, 2015, off the Bahamas after sailing into the path of then-category 3 storm Hurricane Joaquin while en route from Jacksonville, Fla., to San Juan, Puerto Rico, claiming the lives of all 33 people on board.
Following an unsuccessful search and rescue mission, the Coast Guard located the wreckage of the El Faro, along with the ship’s VDR, under 15,000 feet of water, about 41 miles (36 nautical miles) northeast of Acklins and Crooked Islands, Bahamas. Retrieving the VDR, which is similar to the “black boxes” found on aircraft, took three separate joint missions that brought together members of the Coast Guard, U.S. Navy, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, the National Science Foundation and the University of Rhode Island and NTSB over the course of 10 months.
The NTSB in its final report called the casualty the “deadliest shipping disaster involving a U.S.-flagged vessel in more than 30 years” and estimated the total monetary damages from the incident at roughly $36 million.
Both the NTSB and the U.S. Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation placed the majority of the blame for the incident on the ship’s captain, but also cited poor inspection oversight; inadequate safety equipment, including lack of suitable survival craft; and improper cargo stowage as factors in the El Faro’s untimely demise.
Initially introduced by Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., the Maritime Safety Act of 2018 specifically instructs the Coast Guard to document vessel compliance with safety inspections and publish this information on a publicly accessible website.
In addition, the U.S. Comptroller General would be required to conduct an audit of the implementation and effectiveness of USCG ship safety management plans and present its findings to the House T&I Committee as well as the general public.
The bill further requires that cargo vessels be outfitted with distress signaling and location technology. It even goes as far as to instruct the USCG to enter into discussions with the International Maritime Organization to amend its International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) to require a high-water alarm sensor in each cargo hold that connects with audible and visual alarms on the navigation bridge, as well as to require that vessels subject to SOLAS receive timely synoptic and graphical chart weather forecasts.
With regard to VDRs, H.R. 6175 seeks to further amend SOLAS to require that all voyage data recorders are installed in a float-free arrangement and contain an integrated emergency radio positioning beacon. This would mean that VDRs would automatically detach from a vessel and immediately begin transmitting its own location after floating to the surface in the event of a casualty, theoretically eliminating the need for costly retrieval missions.
El Faro safety legislation clears committee
