NTSB calls for study of ice buildup on fishing boats following fatal sinking of Scandies Rose in Gulf of Alaska

The National Transportation Safety Board on Tuesday recommended further study of the destabilizing effects of ice buildup on commercial fishing boats after a review of the investigation into the fatal sinking of the Scandies Rose.

The Seattle-based crabbing vessel sank during the final hours of New Year’s Eve 2019 in the Gulf of Alaska. Five crew members died and two were rescued. The ship had left Kodiak to fish in the Bering Sea.

“The Scandies Rose didn’t capsize and sink because a crew member or the captain did not do their jobs, or because it had been poorly maintained,” NTSB Chairman Robert Sumwalt said during a board meeting Tuesday. “It sank because its captain only had partial access to the information that he needed to make the right decisions, and the information that he did have was inaccurate.”

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During Tuesday’s meeting, officials reviewed a draft report of the investigation, which determined the probable cause for the ship’s sinking. Sumwalt said they hope to learn from the tragedy and make recommendations that could prevent something similar from happening.

There were inaccurate stability instructions for the ship, according to the report. Regulatory guidelines about stability consider only limited weight gains for accumulated ice on horizontal and vertical surfaces, the report said. The regulations don’t guide crews on how to account for ice accumulation on crab pots or other exposed surfaces.

“The vessel was loaded according to stability instructions that were not conservative enough,” Sumwalt said. “The captain set out to sea without the margin of safety required by the regulations, and the vessel met weather conditions that demanded such a margin.”

[Sinking of crab boat comes after decades-long push to improve safety of commercial fishing]

Weather was poor the night the Scandies Rose sank, ice buildup accelerated rapidly and the boat likely accumulated between “6 and 15 inches of ice on surfaces exposed to wind and icing,” the report said.

The ice accumulated asymmetrically on the vessel and crab pots, which raised the boat’s center of gravity and contributed to the capsizing, the report said.

Accurate weather data was also not available near the area where the Scandies Rose sank because weather observations are spread out in remote areas, the report said.

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The NTSB issued recommendations to the U.S. Coast Guard, North Pacific Fishing Vessel Owners’ Association, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and National Weather Service on Tuesday. Among them were to study the impact of icing on crab pots and crab pot stacks and revise regulatory stability calculations accordingly. The board also called for improved surface observation resources in the area of the sinking and for a freezing-spray website to become operational.

“The recommendations we reiterated would result in required vessel stability training for owners, masters, and chief engineers — as well as other training,” Sumwalt said. “They would also result in personal locator beacons for every member of a vessel’s crew.”