Conception (ship)
 The ship in 2000
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The Conception is a boat that crashed in the United States at the beginning of September 2019 and was used for diving trips. The disaster is considered to be the worst marine casualty in California since the sinking of Brother Jonathan in 1865 and the deadliest in the United States since the explosion in the gun turret of the USS Iowa in 1989.
description
The Conception was built in 1981 at a shipyard in Long Beach , California . It is designed for fishing trips and diving trips.
The boat is approved for 103 people. The crew must consist of at least four people, so that there is space for 99 passengers on day trips. For multi-day trips, 46 people can be accommodated, for whom 13 double and 20 single beds are available.
The boat of two Detroit diesel engines, each 550 PS is driven power . The speed is around 10 knots . A Northern Lights diesel generator with 55 kW output is available for power generation.
The boat can travel around 880 nautical miles .
Accident in September 2019
A fire broke out on board the boat on the night of September 2nd to 3rd, 2019, killing 34 people, including one crew member. Five crew members who slept on the upper deck got away with injuries and tried in vain to rescue the other occupants after making emergency calls. The fire broke out shortly after 3 a.m. when the ship anchored for the night's rest in a bay on Santa Cruz Island . The fire probably started in the lower deck, where the passengers and one crew member slept. It is believed that all of the fatalities were caused by smoke inhalation.
Most of the superstructure was destroyed by the fire. The fire could only be extinguished several hours after the fire broke out. The ship sank and was recovered from a depth of 20 meters after a few days. It is the worst shipwreck in California since the sinking of the steamer Brother Jonathan in 1865 (225 dead) and the shipwreck in the United States with the highest fatality since 1989 (explosion in a gun turret of the battleship USS Iowa with 47 dead).
Preliminary investigation results indicated that there were several security deficiencies. For example, the smoke alarms on the lower deck were not connected to the wheelhouse, nor could the alarms of these smoke alarms be heard in other parts of the ship - but this was permitted at the time of official acceptance. The lower deck also had two emergency exits , but one of the exits required that the passengers climb onto one of the beds and crawl further in an alcove and then crawl up. Likewise, no night watch was on patrol.
photos
Cabin bed with the rear emergency exit (picture from 1995)
An employee of the NTSB investigating authority examines the rear emergency exit in the sister ship Vision
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Web links
- Ship information , Truth Aquatics
Footnotes
- ^ A b c Mark Puente, Brittny Mejia, Dakota Smith: California boat fire: What we know about the Conception and its tragic end , Los Angeles Times, September 2, 2019.
- ↑ Gumbel, Andrew: California boat fire: stairs from sleeping quarters led to space filled with flames . In: The Guardian . September 4, 2019 ( theguardian.com ).
- ^ Conception - Vessel details data , Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission, September 11, 2019.
- ↑ Certificate of Inspection , Department of Homeland Security, United States Coast Guard, November 19, 2014 (PDF, 39 kB).
- ↑ a b c Richard Winton, Mark Puente, Hannah Fry: Authorities raise burned remains of Conception after weather delay , Los Angeles Times, September 12, 2019.