What caused the 1990 fire aboard the MS Scandinavian Star, was it a lone passenger, the actions
Apr 27, 2019 3:46:21 GMT
Post by hi224 on Apr 27, 2019 3:46:21 GMT
MS Scandinavian Star, originally named MS Massalia, was a car and passenger ferry built in France in 1971. The ship was set on fire in April 1990, killing 159 people, and the official investigation blamed the fires on a convicted arsonist, who died in the fire. This finding has since been disputed by many reputable investigators.
The Ship:
MS Massalia was built by Dubigeon-Normandie S.A. in 1971 and delivered to Compagnie de Paquebots who put her on the route from Marseille to Casablanca and also cruises in the Mediterranean Sea. In 1984 she was owned by a number of companies and named Stena Baltica, Island Fiesta and finally Scandinavian Star, a name given to her by Scandinavian World Cruises who chartered the ship for cruises between destinations in Florida and Mexico.
Spanning 466feet in length she was powered by two 16 cylinder diesel engines and could reach speeds of up to 20knots.
The prelude to the disaster:
In 1990, the Scandinavian Star was sold and put into service on DA-NO Linjen's route between Norway and Denmark. As the ship had been converted from a casino/cruise ship to a passenger ferry, a new crew needed to be trained and were given just ten days to learn new responsibilities.
Master mariner Captain Emma Tiller, was interviewed for a National Geographic documentary series and stated that six to eight weeks would be a reasonable period to train a crew for a ship of the Star's size.
Many of the crew could not speak English, Norwegian or Danish, thus further reducing the effectiveness of any response to an emergency. The insurance company Skuld's technical leader, Erik Stein, had inspected the ship shortly before, and had declared the fire preparedness deficient, for among other reasons because of defective fire doors that would not shut or wouldn't return to a closed position if forced open.
The Fire:
During the night of 7 April 1990, several small fires were seen or reported on various decks, these were variably extinguished and none were reported or otherwise related to other crewmembers until during the inquest later.
At about 2 a.m. a fire broke out in a pile of bedding left lying in a hallway and was discovered by a passing passenger who brought it to the attention of the receptionist.
The fire spread from deck 3 to deck 4 and stopped at deck 5. As the investigation later stated, stairwell and ceilings acted as chimneys for the fire to spread throughout the ship. Although the bulkheads were made of steel structure with fire proof asbestos wall boards, a melamine resin laminate was used as a decorative covering and became the primary fuel for the ensuing fire as it was proven to be extremely flammable in subsequent testing, spreading fire further along Deck 3.
The burning laminates then produced toxic hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide gases which was later found to have been the main cause of most loss of life.
When the captain learned of the fire, he pressed the buttons on the bridge consoles to close the bulkhead fire doors on Deck 3. The fire doors were not configured for fully automatic closing and did not respond since emergency alarms near the doors had not been manually triggered by passengers or crew, this was one of the aforementioned defective fire safety systems which had been highlighted to the company.
A vehicle storage area ventilated by large fans to remove exhaust fumes was also located nearby, and the fans pulled air through an open fire door and caused rapid fire progress from Deck 3 through Deck 4 and Deck 5 via stairways located on either end that acted like a bellows pushing the fire on further.
The captain later ordered his crew to turn off the ventilation system when he realized it was feeding the fire, and an unintended result was that smoke was able to enter passenger cabins via the door vents. Some tried to seek refuge from the smoke in areas such as closets and bathrooms, but were eventually overcome by smoke. Many more never woke up and died in their cabins.
Those who tried to escape may have variously encountered thick smoke, confusing corridor layouts, and poorly trained crew members. The captain ordered the general alarms to be activated, told everyone to abandon ship, and sent out a mayday request. The captain and crew ultimately went on to abandon ship before all passengers were evacuated, leaving many still on board the burning ship even after it was towed to the nearest harbor.
159 people died, many from the toxic gasses rather then the fire itself.
Investigation and theories:
The investigation quickly learned that The Scandinavian Star had other fires prior to 1990. On 15 March 1988, while sailing for on a Carribean cruise, a fire started in the engine room when the ship was about 50 nautical miles (90 km) northeast of Cancún, Mexico. The ship was carrying 439 passengers and 268 crew members. The ship lost power and the emergency oxygen system malfunctioned, hampering the fire-fighting crew's efforts. The inability of the crew members to communicate effectively with each other and with passengers was a serious concern and created confusion during the fire fighting and evacuation activities. During the investigation of the fire, investigators learned that unreported fires had also occurred in 1985, caused by a deep-fryer, and again just days before the 15 March 1988 fire, caused by a broken lubricating pipe.
An Oslo police investigation initially cast suspicion on Erik Mørk Andersen, a Danish truck driver who died in the disaster and who had three previous convictions for arson.
A later investigation in 2009 determined that there had been several separate fires lit within a short period and that multiple people would have been required to start them, this pointed immediately to the crew members as passengers would have been unfamiliar with the ships layout and would have been unlikely to make it quickly between the ignition sites.
A 2013 report prepared by a self-appointed Norwegian group called "Stiftelsen Etterforskning Av Mordbrannen Scandinavian Star" ("Foundation for Arson Investigation Scandinavian Star") denied that Anderson was responsible, claiming instead that multiple fires were deliberately set and they provided their own investigative proof that the truck driver was killed by one of the first two fires which had been lit up to nine hours prior to the last fire being started. This proved finally for many that he could not have been the culprit.
This controversial report led to renewed police interest; and in 2014 the investigation was officially reopened and charges were finally dropped against the deceased suspect Erik Mørk Andersen for lack of corroborating evidence.
The same 2013 report claimed that as many as nine experienced members of the crew, having joined the ship earlier in Tampa, were likely to be responsible for six of the separate fires on the Scandinavian Star that night as well as multiple acts of sabotage to both the ship and the fire crew's efforts to put out the fire. The report proposed the motive for the crime was insurance fraud, as the ship was insured for twice its value shortly before the fire broke out. The report claims that multiple people with insider knowledge of the ship were required for events to unfold as they did, this would have included crew at all levels as well as potentially passengers who were complicit in starting the fires. This report also pointed out that if it was an insurance fraud, no consideration had been given to saving passengers lives as many fires were lit in such a way as to block obvious exit routes.
In February 2016, the retired Danish investigator Flemming Thue Jensen, who had led the post-fire investigation in 1990, claimed that the fire was a case of sabotage and was set by members of the ship's crew; that fire doors had been propped open to allow the fire to spread; and that a third flare-up that occurred after the ship had been evacuated of passengers was caused by crew members soaking mattresses with diesel fuel in the hallways.
To prove this he provided photos from the original investigation of diesel lines cut near the remains of clearly piled up mattresses as well as frames of beds that remained in the hallways suggesting they were dragged out to block the fire doors.
This lead to a Norwegian Commission of enquiry reopening the investigation in 2017. Astoundingly, this commission found no evidence of Arson or Sabotage occurred aboard the ship and instead stated that the fire was started and propagated by overheating through the steel superstructure which lead to the walls laminate melting and burning to produce the fire and toxic gases.
Final Conclusions:
In 1993, three people, the captain, shipping company director and owner of the vessel were convicted of contravening the regulations on ship safety.
In March 2015 the Parliament of Norway decided to remove the statute of limitations for arson, such that criminal investigation and prosecution remains possible for anyone found to have been involved in starting or sustaining the fires that occurred.
What do you think? Was the fire an accident caused by overheating, a lone arsonist that may have perished in their own fire or a concerted act of insurance fraud which caused the deaths of a third of the ships passengers that night?
Wikipedia Link
The Ship:
MS Massalia was built by Dubigeon-Normandie S.A. in 1971 and delivered to Compagnie de Paquebots who put her on the route from Marseille to Casablanca and also cruises in the Mediterranean Sea. In 1984 she was owned by a number of companies and named Stena Baltica, Island Fiesta and finally Scandinavian Star, a name given to her by Scandinavian World Cruises who chartered the ship for cruises between destinations in Florida and Mexico.
Spanning 466feet in length she was powered by two 16 cylinder diesel engines and could reach speeds of up to 20knots.
The prelude to the disaster:
In 1990, the Scandinavian Star was sold and put into service on DA-NO Linjen's route between Norway and Denmark. As the ship had been converted from a casino/cruise ship to a passenger ferry, a new crew needed to be trained and were given just ten days to learn new responsibilities.
Master mariner Captain Emma Tiller, was interviewed for a National Geographic documentary series and stated that six to eight weeks would be a reasonable period to train a crew for a ship of the Star's size.
Many of the crew could not speak English, Norwegian or Danish, thus further reducing the effectiveness of any response to an emergency. The insurance company Skuld's technical leader, Erik Stein, had inspected the ship shortly before, and had declared the fire preparedness deficient, for among other reasons because of defective fire doors that would not shut or wouldn't return to a closed position if forced open.
The Fire:
During the night of 7 April 1990, several small fires were seen or reported on various decks, these were variably extinguished and none were reported or otherwise related to other crewmembers until during the inquest later.
At about 2 a.m. a fire broke out in a pile of bedding left lying in a hallway and was discovered by a passing passenger who brought it to the attention of the receptionist.
The fire spread from deck 3 to deck 4 and stopped at deck 5. As the investigation later stated, stairwell and ceilings acted as chimneys for the fire to spread throughout the ship. Although the bulkheads were made of steel structure with fire proof asbestos wall boards, a melamine resin laminate was used as a decorative covering and became the primary fuel for the ensuing fire as it was proven to be extremely flammable in subsequent testing, spreading fire further along Deck 3.
The burning laminates then produced toxic hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide gases which was later found to have been the main cause of most loss of life.
When the captain learned of the fire, he pressed the buttons on the bridge consoles to close the bulkhead fire doors on Deck 3. The fire doors were not configured for fully automatic closing and did not respond since emergency alarms near the doors had not been manually triggered by passengers or crew, this was one of the aforementioned defective fire safety systems which had been highlighted to the company.
A vehicle storage area ventilated by large fans to remove exhaust fumes was also located nearby, and the fans pulled air through an open fire door and caused rapid fire progress from Deck 3 through Deck 4 and Deck 5 via stairways located on either end that acted like a bellows pushing the fire on further.
The captain later ordered his crew to turn off the ventilation system when he realized it was feeding the fire, and an unintended result was that smoke was able to enter passenger cabins via the door vents. Some tried to seek refuge from the smoke in areas such as closets and bathrooms, but were eventually overcome by smoke. Many more never woke up and died in their cabins.
Those who tried to escape may have variously encountered thick smoke, confusing corridor layouts, and poorly trained crew members. The captain ordered the general alarms to be activated, told everyone to abandon ship, and sent out a mayday request. The captain and crew ultimately went on to abandon ship before all passengers were evacuated, leaving many still on board the burning ship even after it was towed to the nearest harbor.
159 people died, many from the toxic gasses rather then the fire itself.
Investigation and theories:
The investigation quickly learned that The Scandinavian Star had other fires prior to 1990. On 15 March 1988, while sailing for on a Carribean cruise, a fire started in the engine room when the ship was about 50 nautical miles (90 km) northeast of Cancún, Mexico. The ship was carrying 439 passengers and 268 crew members. The ship lost power and the emergency oxygen system malfunctioned, hampering the fire-fighting crew's efforts. The inability of the crew members to communicate effectively with each other and with passengers was a serious concern and created confusion during the fire fighting and evacuation activities. During the investigation of the fire, investigators learned that unreported fires had also occurred in 1985, caused by a deep-fryer, and again just days before the 15 March 1988 fire, caused by a broken lubricating pipe.
An Oslo police investigation initially cast suspicion on Erik Mørk Andersen, a Danish truck driver who died in the disaster and who had three previous convictions for arson.
A later investigation in 2009 determined that there had been several separate fires lit within a short period and that multiple people would have been required to start them, this pointed immediately to the crew members as passengers would have been unfamiliar with the ships layout and would have been unlikely to make it quickly between the ignition sites.
A 2013 report prepared by a self-appointed Norwegian group called "Stiftelsen Etterforskning Av Mordbrannen Scandinavian Star" ("Foundation for Arson Investigation Scandinavian Star") denied that Anderson was responsible, claiming instead that multiple fires were deliberately set and they provided their own investigative proof that the truck driver was killed by one of the first two fires which had been lit up to nine hours prior to the last fire being started. This proved finally for many that he could not have been the culprit.
This controversial report led to renewed police interest; and in 2014 the investigation was officially reopened and charges were finally dropped against the deceased suspect Erik Mørk Andersen for lack of corroborating evidence.
The same 2013 report claimed that as many as nine experienced members of the crew, having joined the ship earlier in Tampa, were likely to be responsible for six of the separate fires on the Scandinavian Star that night as well as multiple acts of sabotage to both the ship and the fire crew's efforts to put out the fire. The report proposed the motive for the crime was insurance fraud, as the ship was insured for twice its value shortly before the fire broke out. The report claims that multiple people with insider knowledge of the ship were required for events to unfold as they did, this would have included crew at all levels as well as potentially passengers who were complicit in starting the fires. This report also pointed out that if it was an insurance fraud, no consideration had been given to saving passengers lives as many fires were lit in such a way as to block obvious exit routes.
In February 2016, the retired Danish investigator Flemming Thue Jensen, who had led the post-fire investigation in 1990, claimed that the fire was a case of sabotage and was set by members of the ship's crew; that fire doors had been propped open to allow the fire to spread; and that a third flare-up that occurred after the ship had been evacuated of passengers was caused by crew members soaking mattresses with diesel fuel in the hallways.
To prove this he provided photos from the original investigation of diesel lines cut near the remains of clearly piled up mattresses as well as frames of beds that remained in the hallways suggesting they were dragged out to block the fire doors.
This lead to a Norwegian Commission of enquiry reopening the investigation in 2017. Astoundingly, this commission found no evidence of Arson or Sabotage occurred aboard the ship and instead stated that the fire was started and propagated by overheating through the steel superstructure which lead to the walls laminate melting and burning to produce the fire and toxic gases.
Final Conclusions:
In 1993, three people, the captain, shipping company director and owner of the vessel were convicted of contravening the regulations on ship safety.
In March 2015 the Parliament of Norway decided to remove the statute of limitations for arson, such that criminal investigation and prosecution remains possible for anyone found to have been involved in starting or sustaining the fires that occurred.
What do you think? Was the fire an accident caused by overheating, a lone arsonist that may have perished in their own fire or a concerted act of insurance fraud which caused the deaths of a third of the ships passengers that night?
Wikipedia Link
