Providence-Newport Ferry Co. Was Involved in $75M Lawsuit Following NY Crash UPDATED
Wednesday, July 06, 2016
Seastreak, the operator of the new Providence-Newport ferry service, was hit with $75 million in lawsuits after its commuter ferry in New York crashed into a Wall Street pier in 2013, injuring 45 passengers.
The Rhode Island ferry service began operation the weekend on July 2, and experienced high volume that resulted in at least 30 passengers being left off a return trip in Newport, due to a lack of reservation system in place at the time.
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Bloomberg News reported on May 18, 2013:
The ferry had 326 people aboard when it left Atlantic Highlands at 8 a.m. on Jan. 9 and slammed into a docking barge at 8:43 a.m., authorities said at the time. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the crash.
SeaStreak has reached settlements ranging from free monthly tickets to $265,000, according to the filing yesterday. The company also has begun repairing the docking barge, which is estimated to cost $350,000.
In 2014, after investigating the incident, the National Transportation Safety Board found that the ferry lacked a safety management system.
"While the Seastreak Wall Street is the third ferry accident the NTSB has investigated in New York City in the last decade, we found areas of risk identified in previous investigations, said NTSB Chairman Deborah A.P. Hersman in a release from April 8, 2014. "Seastreak LLC had no safety management system (SMS) in place to identify risks and take corrective actions. Although the NTSB recommended that SMS be required in 2005 and the Coast Guard was provided the authority to require them by Congress in 2010, SMSs are still not required for domestic passenger vessels. It is time to require that every passenger vessel implement an SMS."
"A safety management system would have required the company to maintain current documents, to train employees to integrate safe practices into both routine vessel operations and emergency preparations and to clearly define the roles of the crew members, ensuring the captain had assistance during the emergency.
NTSB Finding
The NTSB issued the following finding in 2014
The captain lost control of the vessel because of confusion about the mode in which the ferry was operating. Earlier in the accident trip, the captain had taken the vessel from the normal Combinator mode to the seldom-used Backup mode; as he approached the dock, he was not aware he had not transferred the propulsion system back to Combinator mode. In Backup Mode, the propellers remained in the forward pitch position, causing the vessel to increase forward speed rather than slow down.
Contributing to the severity of injuries was the lack of procedures to limit passenger access to stairwells on the Seastreak Wall Street during potentially high-risk situations such as docking and undocking. Immediately prior to the accident, no audible alarm was sounded nor did the captain make an announcement to inform passengers of the emergency.
As a result of this accident, the NTSB makes recommendations to:
*United States Coast Guard regarding human factors standards for critical vessel controls, the need for operator control of ferry passenger access to stairwells, and the carriage of marine voyage data recorders;
*the owner of the Seastreak Wall Street to improve specific control system displays and alerts, complete development and implementation of a safety management system, and revise its vessel operations and training manuals; and
*the manufacturer of the Seastreak Wall Street propulsion control system to improve its design and alert its customers to the changes.
*Additionally, three previously issued recommendations to the United States Coast Guard requiring the installation of voyage data recorders and the implementation of safety management systems were reclassified.
Weekend Issues in RI
The new Rhode Island service was hampered by a lack of reservation system on Saturday and Sunday of its opening weekend, causing dozens of passengers to miss a return ferry from Newport to Providence Sunday evening.
Operating Manager John Silvia told GoLocal that the company had finalized its system as of Monday, but additional follow-up calls with Silvia went unanswered on Tuesday.
At least one commenter had left a post on Sunday that was no longer on the company's Facebook page, prompting another commenter to ask if the company was deleting negative comments.
According to a press release from RI DOT on Tuesday, "from its start up on Friday, July 1 through yesterday, July 4, approximately 1,300 people took the ferry from Providence to Newport. Additionally, all of the morning trips to Newport were sold out, and all but the one of the midday trips reached capacity." About 200 travelers were unable to travel by ferry as one ferry trip was cancelled and at least 30 were passengers were bumped.
