The Monarch of the Seas Disaster

as the clock tick past midnight on a bamey December evening in 1998 all was calm aboard the cruise ship Monarch of the Seas she was built for luxury and at the time exemplified the best of the best in modern cruising she was at 73937 gross tons one of the largest cruise ships in the world that evening as she navigated through the waters of St Martin in the Caribbean passengers indulged in Gourmet Cuisine lavish entertainment and breathtaking views as everybody settled in for the night they were totally unaware of what was about to happen in seconds their Carefree trip was transformed when their ship dragged itself over a reef tearing the hull like tissue paper what happened over the next few hours was a brilliant demonstration of why ship safety measures are in place and how they can save hundreds of lives but curiously the incident has been forgotten almost entirely by the general public ladies and gentlemen I'm your friend Mike Brady from ocean liner designs and this is what happened to the monarch of the [Music] [Music] Seas the monarch of the Seas owned and operated by Royal Caribbean International was a favorite for many in the cruise industry in the 1990s with a substantial gross tonnage of 73,9 37 tons and an impressive length of about 800 0 ft or 268 M she was equipped with an impressive range of amenities and features including an outdoor basketball court a climbing wall a selection of pools all the usual bars and restaurants but it hadn't all been smooth sailing early in her construction the ship had been gutted by a fire after a welding accident she had to be completely rebuilt at the shipyard but despite it's on board magnificence all was not well with this ship because few aboard could know that it would soon be involved in an incident and almost sunk and would put all of those safety standards and procedures that had been generated through the last few decades into practice in the early hours of Tuesday December 15th 1998 on her journey from the US Virgin Islands to Martinique the monarch of the Seas had to make an unplanned stop the ship was forced to make an emergency diversion to Philipsburg s Martin as a passenger on board had suffered from a suspected heart attack and needed to be disembarked immediately as the passenger was escorted to shore with the ship's doctor nurse and a small Detachment of crew the monarch of the Seas waited in the pristine Waters of Great Bay staying in position under her B thrusters and her engines wind conditions were light visibility was clear in all directions at about 1:25 a.m. the doctor and his small team returned aboard and the ship's crew prepared to get back on track to their original destination martinque now this is where things began to go wrong there were five crew members on the bridge that night the captain the staff Captain his second in command the officer on watch the Helmsman and the duty Helmsman who was asked to serve as a lookout now once everyone was back on board the captain was faced with a challenge as his ship had to negotiate getting around the nearby dangerous proelite Reef he navigated primarily by side while relying on assistance from the officer on watch who was making calculations using the ship's automatic radar plotting Aid or arpa for short the calculations he made that night were for the ship to pass the reef within the closest possible approach a distance of some three cables or about3 nautical miles off the reefs lighted night marker boy which essentially marked it out as a hazard at nighttime unfortunately the crew would soon find out that the calculations and the plotted course they were all wrong about 1:28 a.m. the ship's Captain handed navigational duties over to the officer on the watch because of an unexpected problem he was suffering from a gastrointestinal issue that had been spreading throughout the ship before leaving the bridge he confirmed twice with the crew their position their safe distance from the boy and the reef which could be visually seen at that point and headed down to his quarters at the later investigation the staff Captain who was not part of the navigation efforts noted that he was actually surprised to see the ship's course was being set to pass east of the proelite reef light boy which was not the usual route but he didn't question it the course taken on the night was considered a more direct but riskier course toward martinque now this was most likely done to make up for the time loss disembarking the sick passenger the officer on watch began making a planned course change that would take the vessel safely around the south side of the reef when two seemingly benign things happened next A call came through regarding a passenger complaining of noise which the officer on watch said he would attend to shortly and then an automatic smoke alarm sounded on the bridge which was quickly silenced by the lookout and cleared of any issues then a moment later at 1:30 a.m. as the monarch of the Sea's course started changing it happened the ship grazed across the proelite reef at a speed of 12 knots while it was not stuck on the reef the damage had been clearly done feeling the vibrations from the hit the captain raced straight back to the bridge he burst in and demanded where are we and what has happened taking that command of his ship after conducting a thorough assessment of the damage it was soon apparent that the vessel had suffered significant structural impact the open gash along the starboard side of the hull ran 40 m that's 131 ft long by 2 m or 6 and 1/2 ft wide similar in length to two full basketball courts she was opened up like a tin can Monarch began taking on water and going down by the head a number of tanks and compartments below the water line began to flood the pumps were helpless against the flow of water rushing into the ship it was clear she was living on borrowed time at about 1:35 a.m. as mon Mark of the Seas continued to take on water the captain consulted with his senior officers and made the decision to return to St Martin and intentionally ground the ship on a sandbank in Great Bay now this would prevent the vessel from sinking completely or most dangerously of all listing and capsizing before an evacuation with the situation growing increasingly dire the crew now faced a Race Against Time to ensure the safety of themselves as well as their passengers 12 minutes later seven short blasts and one long Blast from the ship's public address system signaled a general emergency to all passengers and crew to avoid a panic the captain made them aware over the PA system of the exact nature of the situation now this was crucial we'll come back to that later what happened next was a orderly and careful evacuation which came from years of drill and delicate preparations Miami's Marine operations and the Cent Martin Port Authorities were notified in turn the ship's lifeboats were made ready for launching and then from the shore the Coast Guard began readying local tender vessels to actually assist in the evacuation over the next hour those frequent updates were given over the public address system in English Spanish French and German with the captain requesting repeatedly that passengers and crew get dressed done their life jackets and report to their must stations it was time to prepare to abandon ship at about 2:35 a.m. the captain then intentionally guided his ship into a soft Sandbar in St Martin's Great Bay grounding it smoothly to a halt with no further damage Monarch was now thankfully at no risk of sinking and the evacuation could properly get underway over the following 3 hours those Shore based tender boats from St Martin carried all 2500 odd passengers safely away from the ship the Breaking Dawn showed a very strange sight Monarch of the Seas down by the head with the slick of oil on the surface of the pristine aou sea despite the dramatic scene though a disastrous loss of life had been averted and everybody was safe and sound so what exactly had gone wrong well of course following the incident a pretty major investigation was launched that pieced apart everything very forensically picked apart all the circumstances to try and draw out areas for improvement this was led jointly by the Norwegian Maritime investigator and the US Coast Guard the meticulous inquiry aimed to dissect every aspect of the ship's operations the results were documented in 62 p report outlining every detail of the night and it makes for very interesting dramatic reading through thorough interviews detailed data analysis and in-depth evidence examination it became very clear that the accident was caused by what the investigation called direct quote a myriad of human performance deficiencies all the ship's radar and navigation equipment had been found to be in fine working order but it soon became clear to investigators that the crew had been entirely at fault now there were plenty of critical and more obvious oversights like for example the failure to refer to updated charts that mapped out the corrected location of the proelite reef marker boy the report also found that the original course plotted to pass the reef had been set without the ship's actual exact position having been marked first which is really ship navigation 101 type stuff in fact the captain when he left the bridge had simply assumed his subordinates would check for themselves if the crew had tracked this they would have found that their vessel had actually drifted quite a lot while it had been stopped disembarking the sick passenger the drift was never taken into account when setting the new course using the arpa or automatic radar plotting Aid and not only that but the report actually found that there was too much Reliance on the Reef's Light Boy and the actual arpa as the sole markers for determining the ship's position in relation to the reef using GPS or even just traditional navigational techniques like terrestrial navigation would have given an accurate fix on the Monarch's position coupled with a lack of cohesion and awareness among the bridge crew the stage was set for an accident of Epic Proportions a deeper examination revealed there had been a complete breakdown in communication between the bridge crew and the captain and other key departments on board the captain himself was distracted by his gut issue but he did not pass command over to his staff Captain because of it departure checklists went unused the staff Captain the second most senior officer on board had no idea of the captain's plans and was actually surprised by the course he had chosen the report found that he trusted the captain so implicitly that he never questioned him about it the seemingly benign phone call from the ship's perser concerning the passenger complaining of noise and that fire alarm that sounded both of those things had distracted from the bridge crew's focus at a critical moment in fact the crew member who is actually trying to plot the Monarch's position via the radar as well as keeping his eye on the Reef's marker boy had then also taken the phone call from the perser and then tried to handle all three of those tasks at the same time they already stretched resources on the bridge were settled with more issues if not for those mundane distractions the bridge crew might have actually noticed what was about to happen now despite many of the circumstances leading up to the incident some Commendation was actually deserved for the captain and the crew for the actions taken after the grounding the safe beaching of the ship so it couldn't sink that evacuation that worked like Clockwork it showed that thanks to all the careful drills and intensive safety training a big ship could be evacuated in a short amount of time with everybody got away safely Monarch of the Sea's passengers had expected a Holiday in the Sun but this would truly be a vacation they would never forget Monarch's captain and Senior officers were found to have committed at least 11 specific errors which caused the accident and the captain's Behavior was blamed on complacency he knew those Waters well had been there many times before it lulled him into a a false sense of security when combined with a pressing health issue he was clearly ready to cut some Corners more worryingly though the report found that the captain's complacency registered with the crew as easy confidence he seemed completely in control of the situation so nobody dead question him not even his own second in command it's telling that many of the recommendations made by the report refer specifically to human resources and management that future Crews should go through team building exercises together and that senior officers should be trained specifically as regards communicating and dealing with their junior subordinates now there's actually one final twist buried in this report because it turns out that one of the ship's watertight doors hadn't closed properly and it's thought that had the ship not been intentionally beached the Monarch would have sunk the whole story serves as a cautionary tale for any wouldbe captains and sailors out there that complacency kills it doesn't matter how many times you've been in that stretch of waters before bending the rules can can and often does lead to disaster Monarch of the Seas was lucky because she could be beached and saved but other ships like Costa Concordia more recently in 2012 were not so fortunate the Monarch story has gone down largely forgotten to history but it's lessons shouldn't be ignored ladies and gentlemen it's your friend Mike Brady from ocean liner designs thank you so much for watching this video If you enjoyed it please leave a comment below don't forget to subscribe to the channel because we get new videos out weekly if you want to support my work and get really cool perks like behind the scenes and Early Access please visit my patreon in the link in the description below or sign up as a YouTube member come and join the crew as always stay safe stay happy and I'll see you again next time

Channel: Oceanliner Designs

Views: 686,558

Keywords: great ocean liners, maritime history, ocean liners, famous oceanliners, ships documentary, history of ships, engineering, history, ships, documentary, origins explained, world history project, animated history, open educational resources, titanic, shipwreck, sinking, boats, ocean, disaster, tragedy, Monarch of the seas

Id: _E2gQTAzrC8

Length: 13min 42sec (822 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 03 2024