Can someone please explain how on earth a passenger ship (that takes 2 hours to sink) happen?

Question

How is today's indonesian tragegy possible in this day and age

Almost everyone on board died even though they sent distress calls to be rescued 2 hours earlier...My question is not related to the boyancy of the ship but rather why these people were not rescued

Answer 1

amongst other things in my life, I've spent 10 years in the maritime safety field working with passenger vessels from inter island ferries to cruise ships here in the islands.

There are international safety standards, setup by the International Maritime Organization, an arm of the UN. First World countries have their Coast Guard regs as well.
The IMO regs are supposed to apply to all countries. The problem lies in enforcement. Most Third World countries have private firms "enforcing" their regs, some have overworked Coast Guards;most cases the regs aren't even close to being followed. I've seen safety gear on ships in the Caribbean that wouldn't have worked in a million years.

The Indonesian ferry disaster is just the latest from there, or Nigeria or Haiti or or or......it sounds like she was pounding into head seas for two days and the ships structure just plain failed. In two hours a well trained crew could have evacuated everyone into lifeboats or life rafts. Sounds like the crew wasn't well trained ( big surprise) or the passengers panicked ( big surprise) or there wasn't enough working rafts and boats( ditto).......a 35 person liferaft costs about 7,000 US $ and has to be checked every year.....to have 50 rafts aboard.....which is the theoretical IMO standard for a 1750 passenger ship would be $250,000 just to buy and probably 35,000$ a year to inspect......that's probably the entire operations budget for a year for one of these boats.

so, as another answerer said to your other question......poor crew standards, poor ship conditions, expected bad weather not allowed for, poor maintenance, if any, on the life saving gear, no other ships around to show up and fish people out of the water....it has happened before, it will happen again

Answer 2

Nothing as large as a passenger ship just sink even this day and age or for whatever age you consider since men started sailing. There must be a darn good reason for it to happen! Like nobody thought Titanic was unsinkable during their day and age!

Answer 3

i could say in simple terms throw the under performers. however the issue is, if throw away the deliver captain - who is going to steer the sinking deliver. In in the present day's tournament, I suspected his captaincy and sportsmanship - which has been heavily criticized at domicile and worldwide media. yet bear in concepts he replaced into area of the winning team who delivered laurels and titles to Aus. actual now he has a foul patch occurring and with that - a frequently aussie rage with him. yet he's a class participant whilst he's on a music. David Hussey could have performed instead of White. i don't comprehend, why Ponting did no longer chosen Smith and Clarke to bowl in the present day or maybe enable Brett to end his 10 over quota whilst Pak have been suffering at a hundred-4. This tournament is a suspect for me and this is hard to have self assurance that the Aussies to grant away a attractiveness of unbeaten checklist of 34 fits and in simple terms supply up a victory to Pak. i'll actually supply credit to Pak regardless of what replaced into occurring. They bowled properly, fielded decently and stored issues in perspective. Baring Afridi's and Yonus reckless pictures, others have been good.

Answer 4

I don't know about this news but I suppose the ship consisted mainly of material with density greater than water hence is capable of sinking...

Answer 5

It takes two hours because there are compartments filled with air, which causes bouyancy.

Answer 6

it was a slow leak.