Fire on Board the Liberian Passenger Ship Ecstasy, Miami, Florida ...

Factual Information 50 Marine Accident ReportOn May 5, 1997, the ICCL responded that it had distributed SafetyRecommendations M-97-37 and -38 to its members for review and consideration and thatthe recommendations would be an agenda item at the next meeting of its technicalcommittee. Based on these actions, the Safety Board classified Safety RecommendationsM-97-37 and -38 “Open—Acceptable Response,” pending further action by the ICCL onthe issue.On July 25, 1997, the Coast Guard responded that it concurred with SafetyRecommendations M-97-39 and -40. The agency subsequently made a proposal in May1998 to the IMO asking that the fire safety amendments to SOLAS 74 be revised torequire automatic locally sounding smoke alarms on passenger ships. The IMO, in May2000, referred the action for consideration to a subcommittee of its Maritime SafetyCommittee (MSC). Based on the Coast Guard’s actions, the Safety Board classified SafetyRecommendations M-97-39 and -40 “Open—Acceptable Response.”In October 1999, the ICCL wrote the Safety Board asking that SafetyRecommendations M-97-37 and -38 remain in an open status pending final action by theIMO’s MSC on the Coast Guard proposal. The ICCL subsequently presented to the MSCon December 17, 1999, an issue paper opposing the Coast Guard’s proposal that focusedon two propositions: false alarms and crowd management. The ICCL stated that on a dailybasis as many as 20 or more false alarms occur as a result of normal sensitivity of smokedetectors. With regard to the issue of crowd management, the ICCL maintained thatautomatic local-sounding smoke alarms would increase the risk of mass panic bypassengers and impair effective crowd control by ship crews.In April 2001, a Coast Guard official advised the Safety Board that, as a result ofconcerns from some Administrations and the technical questions raised by the ICCL, theproposal for locally sounding alarms was removed from the MSC agenda and notconsidered. The Coast Guard is presently evaluating whether to again introduce theproposal as an agenda item at the next meeting of the MSC, which is spring 2002.In the 25 months following the Safety Board’s issuance of SafetyRecommendations M-97-37 and -38, the Board investigated three cruise ship fires,including the 1998 accident on the Ecstasy. The other accidents are summarized below.On September 19, 1999, a fire broke out in the engineroom of the Liberian cruiseship Tropicale in the Gulf of Mexico. The fire was restricted to the engineroom and smokedid not enter the accommodation spaces; therefore, no one sustained smoke inhalationinjuries. However, 1,096 passengers and 605 crewmembers were put at risk.On May 20, 2000, a fire broke out in a crew cabin on the Netherlands cruise shipNieuw Amsterdam in Glacier Bay, Alaska. While the fire was restricted to one deck,smoke from the fire progressed upwards through nine decks. A passenger was forced tocrawl on his hands and knees along the passageway outside his cabin due to the heavysmoke. The cruise ship was carrying 1,201 passengers and 566 crewmembers.