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

Analysis 56 Marine Accident Reportsubsequently lost propulsive power and most steering and had to be towed back to Miami.During the onboard emergency, all passengers evacuated safely from the affected areas;however, two crewmembers became trapped on deck No. 2, and firefighting teams had torescue them. Nine passengers were treated for injuries resulting from pre-existingconditions or smoke inhalation, and 14 crewmembers sustained minor injuries fromfirefighting activities and/or smoke inhalation.<strong>Fire</strong> Ignition and PropagationAlthough Safety Board investigators found evidence of fire damage, smokedamage, or both in several aft areas of the Ecstasy, they readily narrowed the potentialorigin of the fire to either the aft mooring deck or the main laundry.The Safety Board examined the mooring deck because of the extensive firedamage to the area. Investigators considered various sources of ignition, includingelectrical malfunctions, discarded smoking materials, and accelerants. Electricalmalfunctions could have occurred in the three control boxes for the winches. The wiring inthe control boxes had been exposed to intense heat and the insulation on the wires in theboxes burned away. Investigators found no evidence of arcing or failure, however, in anyof the wiring. Examination of the motor controller panels for the winches, located in thesteering gear room on deck No. 3, also revealed no failures.Investigators found no evidence that smoking materials had been discarded or anyinflammable liquids had been stored on the deck. Moreover, ATF testing of the debrissamples collected after the fire showed no evidence of any accelerant used to intentionallyset the fire (arson). The prolonged fire on the mooring deck might have destroyed anyevidence of ignition caused by smoking material or accelerants. Other evidence, however,indicates that the fire did not originate on the mooring deck. Support for this contention isbased on the dynamics of air flow in the ventilation systems connecting the mooring deckto the laundry room, the condition of the ventilation systems, and the events that tookplace in the main laundry room before the sounding of the first fire alarm.A pathway was necessary for fire to have spread from the mooring deck to themain laundry. Conditions existed, however, that would have prevented the fire fromspreading in this manner. Before the master ordered the shut down of the powerventilation system in MVZs 1 and 2, two ventilation duct systems from the main laundry,separately servicing the dryers and the mangle, exhausted air into the mooring deck at arate of roughly 7 meters per second. If the fire had originated in the mooring deck andspread to the main laundry, the flames would have had to travel through one or both of theduct systems in the opposite direction of the exhaust airflow. Based on Safety Boardcalculations and in accord with current research on flame movement, the flames could nothave traveled against an airflow of such velocity. 4747 A.C. Fernandez-Pello and T. Hirano, “Controlling Mechanisms of Flame Spread,” CombustionScience and Technology, Vol. 32, (1983): 1-31.