58 SUOMEN MERENKULKU ■ FINLANDS SJÖFART In March 2019, the 47,842gt Viking Sky – which had 1,374 passengers and crew onboard – came within a ship’s length of running aground after suffering a blackout and loss of propulsion and steering during a fierce storm off the coast of Norway. A Norwegian Safety Investigation Authority (NSIA) report on the incident warns that shortfalls in emergency training resulted in a ‘time consuming’ process to recover power. Alarm overload is also highlighted, with engine control room crew members struggling to deal with up to 1,000 alarms – many of them non-critical – within the first 10 seconds of the blackout. Investigators found that recovery from a blackout without a standby generator had never been drilled onboard and engineers ‘were therefore faced with a situation they could not readily recognise and were not practised in managing’. It took 39 minutes from the blackout until both propulsion motors were operational and the ship had sufficient power available to maintain between 1 to 5 knots ahead. During this time Viking Sky came within a ship’s length of running aground despite the attempt to arrest its drift by deploying both anchors. Viking Sky drifting towards rocks and shallows after the blackout. Power problems and alarm alert following Viking Sky near miss An investigation into the near-grounding of a cruise ship, which experts warned ‘had the potential to develop into one of the worst disasters at sea in modern times’, has concluded that the vessel should not have been at sea because it was in breach of safe return to port requirements. ANDREW LININGTON reports.
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