The UK MAIB, in its latest Safety Digest, describes how a ro-ro passenger ferry’s propulsion system stopped out of the blue, discussing what caused the system to fail and how the lack of the crews’ training impacted the situation.
The incident
Everything was running normally in a small inter-island ro-ro passenger ferry, until the time that it ran aground shortly after one of its two VoithSchneider propulsion units unexpectedly stopped. It was a fine day with a speed of 13 to 18 miles per hour,...