MAIB issues Safety warning following the foundering of fishing vessel Argos Georgia with the loss of 13 lives

MAIB issues Safety warning following the foundering of fishing vessel Argos Georgia with the loss of 13 lives. This bulletin urges owners, operators and skipper of fishing vessels fitted with side shell doors to ensure suitable and sufficient risk assessment of watertight integrity.

Safety Bulletin can be found here.

Summary

Argos Georgia was a longline fishing vessel registered in St Helena. The vessel foundered while on passage from Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands to fishing grounds near the island of South Georgia. Of the 27 persons people on board, 13 perished.

The ongoing investigation has found that the shell door in the starboard side of Argos Georgia descended slowly into the fully open position. This allowed significant quantities of water to enter the vessel.

Safety Issues

• the means of maintaining the shell door in the closed position did not ensure it remained shut when not in use
• the crew were unable to close the shell door once it had opened; and
• the doors in the boundary of the flooded compartment were in the open position, allowing consequential flooding of adjacent spaces
• the crew were unable to close the boundary doors to the hauling compartment.

Recommendation

All owners, operators and skippers of fishing vessels fitted with side shell doors are recommended to urgently ensure that a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risk of water entering the vessel through the side shell door has been undertaken and documented, noting the safety issues identified in this safety bulletin, and that:

• mitigations identified are immediately implemented to reduce the risks associated with a failure of the shell door retention mechanism;
• where a risk of consequential flooding between compartments exists, appropriate measures including maintaining internal doors in the closed position are taken; and
• the crew are informed of the findings of the risk assessment and the measures taken for their protection.