News

The MAIB has called for shipping safety regulations to be tightened, after it identified a number of problems with the doors of a ferry sailing between Ramsgate and Ostend.

The  investigation was launched into the roll-on, roll-off passenger ferry Eurovoyager after an engine room employee was crushed by a hydraulically-operated steel watertight door during a Ramsgate-bound crossing on Nov 3 last year. His injuries were so severe that he was not expected to return to work for six months.

Ship records revealed that its doors were not secured shut before departure, as should have been the case.

The MAIB made its safety recommendations to the Department for Transport, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and to Belgian and Cypriot shipping authorities as well as to the ship's operator Transeuropa Shipping Lines.

In 1987, 193 people died when the Herald of Free Enterprise sank in the English Channel. An inquiry found that the ship capsized because its watertight doors had been left open.