US Coast Guard: ‘We do not assign culpability when conducting investigations’
Captain Evelynn Samms on investigating the causes of accidents at sea in the US and the prevention of similar incidents.
The white hulls of US Coast Guard (USCG) cutters attest to the fact that their role is to solve problems, rather than create them for somebody else. While part of the entity’s remit involves maintaining coastal security and policing, it is the only branch of the US military for whom saving lives is an explicit component of the job description.
It is a role that is likely to increase in importance over the coming decades, as climate change-induced storms and hurricanes increase in their frequency and ferocity. The USCG also crews and maintains the United States’ fleet of icebreakers, and aircraft for search and rescue (SAR).
Part of the USCG’s role involves investigating marine accidents, often jointly with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). The Office of Investigations & Casualty Analysis (CG-INV) oversees marine casualty investigations on behalf of the USCG. In the recent Titan submersible incident, for example, the USCG conducted a thorough SAR effort to look for survivors, and subsequently, worked together with NTSB investigators to determine the cause.
Like other bodies involved in casualty investigation, USCG maintains that the purpose is not to assign blame, but rather to identify a cause and assist in prevention going forward. “The Coast Guard conducts investigations to determine the contributing factors and if there are any actions that can be taken to prevent future accidents,” Captain Samms, Chief of CG-INV, explains.
“While the Coast Guard does not assign culpability when conducting investigations, in accordance [with] 46 United States Code, Chapter 63, Section 6301 (Investigation of marine casualties), after determining the cause of the casualty, the Coast Guard shall determine if any action by a mariner with a Merchant Marine Credential contributed to the cause of the casualty.
“Additionally, the Coast Guard is required to determine if there is any evidence of a civil penalty violation or criminal act under the laws of the US.”
When a USCG casualty investigation determines that there are grounds to pursue administrative or criminal proceedings, a recommendation is made to open a separate enforcement investigation.
Fatigue, timesaving and poor decision making
There is much to go wrong on a ship. Anyone under pressure can be capable of making incorrect decisions. Fatigue has been a killer in the case of marine casualties, but often, there is also a time and cost pressure involved, and the implicit encouragement to take shortcuts.
Sometimes, as in the case of US flagged cargo vessel El Faro, which was investigated both by the USCG and the NTSB, the crew are following the wrong information.
Back in 2015, as the vessel approached the eye of a hurricane, various warnings were issued to the crew of El Faro about the approaching Hurricane Joaquin, but the captain’s disastrous decisions made were, in part, based on information from a weather routing company, which was 12 hours old.
The US is unique in having a fleet of merchant vessels built and crewed by Americans. Rather than abolishing the Jones Act, the Trump administration appears to be a big fan of the Act.
American seafarers are highly sought after and are well paid compared with their counterparts in the rest of the world. But nevertheless, the USCG holds all seafarers to the same standards, Samms states: “The Coast Guard expects all mariners with a Coast Guard-issued Merchant Mariner Credential, or a credential issued by a foreign country, to operate in a professional manner and to be qualified to the level of their credential.”
Nevertheless, commercial pressures exerted on ship crews from their employers cannot be forgotten. “The Coast Guard recognises there is the system as a whole and the mariners’ interaction within that system,” says Samms.
Part of the process involves considering the procedures themselves. It is not enough to say that all marine accidents could be avoided if procedures are followed; as is often the case, faulty procedures, when followed, produce disastrous outcomes.
“While conducting causal analysis, the Coast Guard takes a two-pronged approach to account for both of those items when determining causal factors of the marine casualty, including reviewing manuals, processes, and procedures; how they were followed; and conducting human error analysis,” Samms concludes.
“The Coast Guard reviews policy, procedures, and [the] culture of the company as well as the vessel when conducting causal analysis. This enables the investigator to determine if there any factors from the shore that contributed to the marine casualty.”
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Main image: Stone, a US Coast Guard cutter, sails into Charleston Harbor; credit: Shutterstock.
Inline image: hurricane Joaquin in the North Atlantic Ocean; credit: Shutterstock.
