Fire on a ferry at night. The crew could not talk to the passengers, or to each other.
On the night of 6 to 7 April 1990 fire broke out on the ferry Scandinavian Star between Oslo and Frederikshavn. It spread through the accommodation in minutes. 158 people died in the fire, most of them in their cabins and in the corridors trying to find a way out.
Words in this case
- working language
- The language all crew must understand for safety on board, recorded in the log.
- familiarisation
- Learning the ship: escape routes, muster stations, equipment, before the first watch.
- fire door
- A door that holds back fire and smoke; kept closed.
- passenger announcement
- A clear message to passengers over the loudspeakers in their languages.
- escape route
- The marked way from any space to the deck and the muster station.
More words like these in the glossary and in listening practice.
What happened
Scandinavian Star had changed owner and flag a week earlier. The crew had been put together in a hurry, many of them Portuguese, most of them new to the ship. There had been no proper fire drill and the crew did not know the layout of the accommodation, a maze of corridors and stairways from several conversions. The passengers were Scandinavian; few of the crew spoke a language the passengers understood, and the crew members did not all share a language with each other.
A fire was started deliberately in a stairway around two in the morning. Fire doors were open or failed, and the corridors acted like chimneys; the smoke and the heat spread far faster than anybody expected. The alarm came late and the announcements, where there were any, were not understood. Crew members who tried to help could not direct passengers, and passengers who woke up found smoke-filled corridors with no clear way to the deck.
The ship was taken in tow, still burning, and the fire was fought for days. There were 383 passengers and 99 crew on board; 158 people died in the fire, 156 passengers and 2 crew members. One more person died later of injuries, which is why many accounts give 159. The Norwegian commission of inquiry found that the crew had not been trained on the ship, that language skills in the crew were in places too poor, with a number of the Portuguese crew members having no usable English at all, that the safety organisation did not function, and that the ship's layout and fire protection made escape almost impossible once the fire had taken hold.
Why it happened
- Parts of the crew did not have enough English to work together, and few of them could give instructions in a language the Scandinavian passengers understood.
- A new crew, no drills, no knowledge of the ship: the emergency organisation on paper did not exist in practice.
- Open fire doors and long corridors let the fire and smoke spread through the accommodation in minutes.
- Passengers were not warned in time or in a language they understood.
What to remember on board
- Every ship has a working language; on a passenger ship the crew must also be able to give basic instructions in the passengers' languages, and the announcements are prepared in advance.
- New on board means a walk of the escape routes, the fire doors and the muster stations before the first night at sea.
- A fire drill on a passenger ship is practised with the words you will use: "Leave your cabin, go to the stairs, follow the lights."
- Fire doors are kept closed. Every one wedged open is a chimney waiting for a match.
What changed afterwards
The case led to stricter rules on crew familiarisation, working language and passenger ship safety in the Nordic countries and the IMO, and SOLAS now requires every ship to establish a working language, record it in the log-book and make sure every seafarer understands it.
Three questions
The kind of questions a knowledge test asks about this case. Keys 1 to 4 answer, Enter goes on.
Read more
Source: Scandinavian Star ulykken, 7. april 1990, report of the Norwegian commission of inquiry, NOU 1991:1A; later Danish and Norwegian reviews.
On this site: Ro-ro and passenger ships ยท Fire protection.
Plain-English summary of an official investigation report. Facts and findings are the investigators'; the wording is ours. Nothing here is legal advice or a substitute for the report itself.