The National Transportation Safety Board is renewing a recommendation that personal locator beacons be given employees on vessels.
The recommendation comes after the capsizing of the liftboat Seacor Power April 13, 2021, in which six died and seven went missing, presumed dead, according to an Oct. 18 news release.
“We’ve been waiting five years for the Coast Guard to implement our recommendation on personal locator beacons — a call to action we’re renewing today for the fourth time,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said. “Mariners’ safety can’t wait, which is why I’m urging employers to invest in personal locator beacons for their crew. As the Seacor Power tragedy shows, the lifesaving promise of these devices cannot be overstated.”
A thunderstorm’s severe winds led to the Seacor Power’s loss of stability and capsizing off the coast of Port Fourchon, La., according to the news release. There were 19 people aboard the Seacor Power, which supported “offshore work on oil-producing platforms.” Six people were rescued, but the vessel, valued at $25 million, was "a total loss."
Because of the incident, the NTSB issued several safety recommendations, including procedural changes such as informing “mariners in affected areas whenever there is an outage at a navigational telex broadcasting site,” the release reported. It was also recommended to require greater stability for restricted-service lifeboat safety regulations and to develop procedures to integrate commercial, municipal and non-profit air rescue providers into mass rescue operation plans.
The NTSB first recommended the Coast Guard require personal locator beacons following the 2015 sinking of El Faro, a cargo vessel in which all 33 crewmembers died, the release reported. NTSB reiterated the recommendation after the sinking in 2019 off Sutwik Island, Alaska, of the fishing vessel Scandies Rose, in which five people died, and following the 2020 sinking of the Emmy Rose fishing vessel off the coast of Massachusetts, in which four people died.
“None of the people aboard the El Faro, the Scandies Rose, the Emmy Rose or the Seacor Power had personal locator beacons. If they did, perhaps more of them would be with us today,” Homendy said, according to the release. “Instead, 55 people died or were unrecovered in these tragedies — 55 people gone forever.”
