On October 24th, in Colon, Panama, one worker was killed and another was seriously injured in a tragic rescue boat accident while working onboard the Coral Princess, a Princess Cruises ship owned by parent company Carnival. According to a statement released by the vessel owner, the two crew members were performing routine maintenance work on the hull of one of the ship’s two rescue boats when, during the process of raising the boat back onto the ship, one of the cables responsible for bringing the ship up “parted” causing the boat to fall back into the water. Both workers were immediately rushed to a nearby hospital where one, identified as Husnan Fauzan, passed away due to the injuries he sustained. The other worker remains hospitalized in what is reported as stable condition.
While the incident remains under investigation, Carnival, a major operator of 17 cruise ships, has yet to comment further as to what caused the cable in question to part in the manner it did.
Whether it was the negligence of the company and its employees in allowing two crew members to ride in a suspended rescue boat, a defective or poorly-maintained cable or a combination of the two that ultimately caused this terrible, but I believe avoidable, accident to occur, the fact remains that the victims of this tragedy and their families do have legal rights and remedies against those responsible. Cables do not just fail without being poorly designed, manufactured and/or maintained. Crew members do not just end up in harm’s way without being ordered to be there by there by their superiors. At the end of the day, companies like Carnival must begin taking the necessary steps to prevent accidents like this from continuing to happen in the future. Otherwise, more lives will be unnecessarily lost.