On the fifth anniversary of a diving boat fire off the Santa Barbara coast that claimed the lives of 34 people — more than half hailing from the Bay Area and Northern California — the head of the National Transportation Safety Board and families of victims criticized the U.S. Coast Guard for not instituting safety requirements they believe will prevent future maritime tragedies.
NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy appeared Monday with surviving relatives and first responders at the MV Conception memorial at Point Castillo on the Santa Barbara shoreline, where she said making safety management systems mandatory for all U.S. ferry operators has been a standing recommendation from her agency since 2010, when Congress gave the Coast Guard authority to implement it.
The on-board fire that destroyed the Conception on Sept. 2, 2019, she said, further reinforced the need.
“It’s 2024, and here we are, with no action. We know our recommendations save lives,” Homendy said. “I call on the Coast Guard to finish its work implementing solutions to prevent such a tragedy from occurring again.”
A safety management system encompasses elements including preventative maintenance, emergency procedures and a clear chain of command; it also mandates that crew be assigned to duties like roving patrols.
Homendy also said she sent a letter to Admiral Linda L. Fagan, commandant of the Coast Guard, and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to mandate safety management systems and end the “unacceptable inaction” that has occurred to this point.
“I strongly urge your full attention to this matter,” Homendry wrote. “The families affected by the Conception tragedy deserve no less.”
The Coast Guard did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Vicki Moore, a Los Altos resident whose husband Raymond Scott Chan and daughter Kendra Chan died in the fire, wrote in an op-ed piece published earlier this year in The Mercury News similarly pressing the Coast Guard to adopt the NTSB recommendation and mandate “a safety management system with clear procedures, checklists and corrective measures to ensure that vessel crews are complying with regulations, company requirements and best practices.
“We don’t want anyone to have to go through what we’ve been through,” Moore wrote. “Tragedies that occur due to safety negligence are not accidents. They are often predictable and preventable, and we all have a role to play to prevent such terrible losses.”
The Conception was anchored off Santa Cruz Island, 25 miles south of Santa Barbara, when it caught fire before dawn. Federal investigators found that the Conception’s captain, Jerry Boylan, did not post a night watch and did not train his crew in firefighting.
At a criminal trial last year, which ended with Boylan being found guilty of one federal count of misconduct or neglect of a ship officer, prosecutors said his failures allowed the fire to spread undetected across the 75-foot boat where 33 passengers and one crewmember perished.
Related Articles
Crashes and Disasters |
Source:: The Mercury News – Entertainment
