Merged South Korean ferry sinks - hundreds missing

[rjh01]

Looks like there was some poor communication on both sides:

Transcript Shows South Korea Ferry Crew Was Plagued by Panic, Confusion



The controller should have answered the bloody question and said you must evacuate the passengers ASAP.
<snip>

On the other hand the controller may not have known the answer to the question.

 

[angrysoba]

Looks like there was some poor communication on both sides:

Transcript Shows South Korea Ferry Crew Was Plagued by Panic, Confusion



The controller should have answered the bloody question and said you must evacuate the passengers ASAP.

For some reason the crew was more worried about the dangers of cold water and currents than the danger of passengers being trapped on a rapidly sinking ship. Perhaps they didn't realise how rapidly the ship was about to sink. Since it is harder to move the greater the angle the ship lists, they should have wasted no time, but 20/20 hindsight.

But none of that explains why the crew abandoned ship and left the passengers to fend for themselves.

While in isolation it can appear to suggest a concern with the passengers' welfare on the part of the crew, that interpretation hardly makes sense when the crew left the ship.

 

[AdMan]

Looks like there was some poor communication on both sides:

Transcript Shows South Korea Ferry Crew Was Plagued by Panic, Confusion

The controller should have answered the bloody question and said you must evacuate the passengers ASAP.

How can you place more responsibility on the controllers than on the the captain (or whoever was leading the crew if the captain was for some reason not there)? They weren't on the ship.

 

[anglolawyer]

If this was a passenger ferry wouldn't the cargo have consisted mostly of cars and trucks? How would that shift? I mean, it's all arranged longitudinally with brakes on (at least on the ferries I've been on) . I don't see how a ship making a turn (they don't turn in a sixpence) could budge everything over to one side.

 

[SusanB-M1]

I appreciate the call for waiting for the captain's own testimony and yet so far his own story simply seems to be that yes he messed up big time.

Is it known how he and crew members escaped safely?

This is such a sad, sad story.

 

[shuize]

For some reason the crew was more worried about the dangers of cold water and currents than the danger of passengers being trapped on a rapidly sinking ship.

Yes, I still cannot wrap my head around this. The crew seemed more worried about the danger of cold water and currents off the ship than the danger of cold water to those trapped below.

Another obvious hole in the captain's defense is that calling for passengers to assemble topside does not automatically mean they are going in the water. But it does mean a damn better chance of survival if the ship kept rolling.

 

[catsmate]

http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20140420000388

Yeah the tramncripts don't make reassuring reading.

On CNN they played a piece of the ship to shore transmission. The shore is screaming at the captain to do what ever he can to the passengers moving - History show he did not follow the instructions

And no defense of the captain, but also today an interesting interview, unlike airline pilots, sea captains undergo no simulated emergency training or drills. So they never get a chance to test their judgment until lives are at risk

I believe this depends on the ship, owner and route; I know (at least some of) the UK/Ireland ferries train their staff for emergencies, including sinking and the North Sea ferry I was on had passenger drills.

If this was a passenger ferry wouldn't the cargo have consisted mostly of cars and trucks? How would that shift? I mean, it's all arranged longitudinally with brakes on (at least on the ferries I've been on) . I don't see how a ship making a turn (they don't turn in a sixpence) could budge everything over to one side.

Like a lot of ferries it also carries some containerised cargo, about 150 12m boxes I believe.

 

[Puppycow]

How can you place more responsibility on the controllers than on the the captain (or whoever was leading the crew if the captain was for some reason not there)? They weren't on the ship.

I didn't intend to imply that. The captain certainly has the gravest responsibility here. He blew it, no question. I assume incompetence and cowardice rather than malice is the reason.

 

[BenBurch]

I'd have at least ordered the passengers onto deck and then had them all move to the opposite side to counteract the list. Passengers comprise the easiest mass to move to right the vessel.

 

[Andy_Ross]

It may have been the cabin boy girl who was on the helm,

It would have been a crewman actualy at the helm. It was the £rd Mate acting as OOW.

There is nothing unusual about this. Ships have more than one officer, they take it in turns to stand Watch.

 

[banquetbear]

Looks like there was some poor communication on both sides:

Transcript Shows South Korea Ferry Crew Was Plagued by Panic, Confusion



The controller should have answered the bloody question and said you must evacuate the passengers ASAP.

...which bloody question do you think the bloody controller should have bloody answered? Was it "if they evacuate now, can they be rescued right away?" Because how the bloody hell would a controller miles away know the answer to that bloody question?

 

[angrysoba]

I'd have at least ordered the passengers onto deck and then had them all move to the opposite side to counteract the list. Passengers comprise the easiest mass to move to right the vessel.

If it's taken you six days to come up with a way to save the vessel then the ship would still have sunk.

 

[angrysoba]

In a bitterly ironic twist to the saga, the Sewol’s captain appeared in a 2010 promotional video promising that the ferry route between Incheon and Jeju was safe, provided passengers followed the crew’s instructions.

"Passengers who take our ship … can enjoy a safe and pleasant trip, and I believe it is safer than any other vehicle as long as they follow the instructions of our crew members," Lee said, according to transcripts of the message released by South Korean media.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/21/south-korea-president-captain-murder

 

[catsmate]

108 confirmed dead. Five crew have been indicated and six more are being investigated for negligence.

 

[catsmate]

Eleven members of the ferry's crew have now been arrested (22 out of 29 survived) and more than seventy staffmembers from the ship's owners (Chonghaejin Marine) have been barred from leaving South Korea pending investigation. The company's offices have also been searched and papers and other materials seized.
150 bodies have been recovered with 152 more missing.

 

[catsmate]

Twenty of the twenty two surviving crew are under arrest, approximately 250 bodies have now been recovered with about fifty remaining in the sunken ship.
It now appears that several of the ship's compartments flooded rapidly after the initial incident; it isn't known is this was due to hull damage (and whether this was from an external impact or from internal cargo striking the hull's interior) or leakage through doors that weren't properly watertight. It's also not yet known what caused the initial sudden turn.
The flooding causes rapid listing, making the launch of lifeboats and rafts difficult. It's now known that only two of twenty six lifeboats were in fact launched. The listing also made movement within the ship difficult.

 

[Blue Mountain]

Thanks for the updates, catsmate1. The inquiry and trials are going to be interesting to follow.

 

[Puppycow]

Apparently the amount of cargo loaded was over 3 times the recommended maximum:

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304518704579518993969767898

Just before departing the port of Incheon on Tuesday last week, the ship, the Sewol, reported by radio to the Korea Shipping Association that it was loaded with 3,608 tons of cargo. The maximum recommended weight of cargo for the Sewol was 987 tons, an official at Korean Register said on Wednesday.

It had also been modified to make it more top-heavy, after it was purchased used from Japan.

 

[Darth Rotor]

Some of you landlubbers ought to look into this and think through the ship stability problem of making a sharp turn in a top heavy ship.

Think of inertia as you sort through the factors you'd insert into whatever equation you think would best describe the motion.

 

[Greedo]

BBC reports the South Korean PM Chung Hong-won has resigned over the ferry disaster.