"You could feel the ship climbing the waves and then just plummeting on the other side. Waves were rocking the sides of the ship too, and it was kind of pitching back and forth as well," Jamey Kennedy, 64, of Clinton, Tennessee, said. Passengers took to social media and have given interviews about what they were witnessing onboard as they waited to be rescued. The ship was visiting the Norwegian towns and cities of Narvik, Alta, Tromso, Bodo and Stavanger before its scheduled arrival Tuesday in the London-area port of Tilbury on the River Thames.
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Viking Sky suffered an engine failure that left it adrift in rough seas, more than two miles away from the Norwegian coast. After sending out a mayday call, the ship's crew evacuated 479 passengers by helicopter, before regaining power and returning to shore under tow assistance with the remaining passengers and crew. The vessel suffered a complete loss of propulsion for 39 minutes before the crew was able to restore power to move ahead at between 1 to 5 knots. The report identified insufficient lubrication oil in the sump tanks of all working diesel generators as the primary cause. The investigation found that one of the vessel's four diesel generators was "unavailable" when it left port, the agency said, meaning that the cruise ship was not in compliance with safety standards and should have never sailed.
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The design of the sump tank on the working generators was also "non-compliant with applicable regulations," the investigation found. Rescuers have evacuated 418 people by helicopter from the Viking Sky cruise ship, a day after the vessel was stranded in rough seas off Norway with 1,300 passengers and crew on board. In the afternoon of 23 March 2019, the cruise vessel Viking Sky experienced a blackout, causing loss of propulsion and steering, during a storm in the Hustadvika area of the Norwegian coast. The vessel is estimated to have come within a ship’s length of running aground with 1,374 persons onboard, and the accident had the potential to develop into one of the worst disasters at sea in modern times. COPENHAGEN, Denmark — A cruise ship at the center of a dramatic evacuation off north Norway five years ago should never have left port because it was not up to safety standards, officials said Tuesday, adding that it could have developed into one of the worst disasters at sea in modern times. A cruise ship that lost power during a storm off the coast of Norway and nearly ran aground in 2019 avoided becoming "one of the worst disasters at sea in modern times," according to a new report looking into the blackout.
Is cruising safe? What the Viking Sky cruise evacuation tells us - Quartzy
Is cruising safe? What the Viking Sky cruise evacuation tells us.
Posted: Mon, 25 Mar 2019 07:00:00 GMT [source]
How the Viking Sky rescue mission developed
Twenty people were treated for injuries including broken bones, cuts and bruises, rescuers said. Dozens of people were injured during the ship’s harrowing ordeal, including 36 who were admitted to hospitals. The Viking Sky ship, owned by Viking Ocean Cruises, was built in 2017 and can hold 930 guests, according to the company's website. Rescuers are facing waves of about 6-8 meters (roughly feet) high, a spokesperson said.
The heavily-listing ship became stranded in a notoriously rough stretch of water in the Norwegian Sea. On Monday, Norway's government announced an investigation into why the ship had left port in the first place despite storm warnings. Everyone who had been on board a stranded cruise ship, including many Americans, was safe Monday morning after a terrifying voyage off the coast of Norway.
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Read accounts from Cruise Critic members who were onboard Viking Sky's evacuated sailing, to learn more about how passengers reacted to the experience, and how the crew responded. Viking Cruises chairman Torstein Hagen praised the rescue operation by Norwegian authorities and the actions of the vessel's crew. Other videos showed passengers strapped into orange safety vests as water rose beneath their feet. Sheppard shared video on social media that showed the ship's floor rolling back and forth on an unsteady plane, followed by the crashing of furniture that clattered across the floor and sometimes slammed into passengers.
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Once at sea, the agency said one of the biggest problems was that the ship's crew had never practiced the protocol for how to recover from a full blackout without a standby generator. Olsen would not speculate why the Viking Sky captain decided to sail despite the weather warning. He said ship operations were one part of the investigation, along with a technical study of why the engines failed and a third review of how the rescue was handled.
The Viking Sky was carrying just over 1,300 passengers and crew when it sent a distress signal on Saturday. The Norwegian Red Cross, which was treating passengers from the stricken cruise ship at an evacuation center in Hustadvika, on Norway's western coast, said that they were seeing injuries including bruising, broken bones and cuts. "The heavy seas in Hustadvika probably caused movements in the tanks so large that the supply to the lubricating oil pumps stopped," the release continued. "This triggered an alarm indicating a low level of lubrication oil, which in turn shortly thereafter caused an automatic shutdown of the engines." “As long as the ships have operated with a higher level of oil in the lubrication tanks, there have been no instances of a drop in oil pressure or blackout,” the NMA writes in its response. They argue the issue of the fourth generator being out of order is not applicable and even if it had been operational it likely would have also had a problem due to the overall oil deficiency.
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Viking Sky suffered a blackout when all three operational diesel generators (DGs) were shut down by their protection systems responding to low lube oil pressures. The low lube oil pressure was due to low levels of lube oil in the sump tanks in combination with the vessel motion, causing the lube oil suction pipe opening to be exposed to air. The vessel encountered strong winds and heavy seas, as forecast, but the vessel motion at the time of the first engine shutdown was significantly below the design criteria. The blackout recovery was time consuming, and it took 39 minutes from the blackout until both propulsion motors were operational and the ship had sufficient power available to maintain between 1 to 5 knots ahead.
The 915 passengers were mainly from the United States and Britain, Reuters reported, though there were also Canadians and Australians on board, among others. The ship anchored in heavy seas to avoid being dashed on the rocks in an area known for shipwrecks. Passengers saw a large wave crashing through glass doors and knocking people across the floor of an area where they had been instructed to gather. The ship left the northern city of Tromsoe carrying almost 1,400 people, despite storm warnings. It was headed for Stavanger in southern Norway when it had engine problems amid a storm on March 23, 2019, and issued a mayday call. He said volunteers are there “for a shoulder to cry on” or for “hand holding” for people from the cruise ship after the evacuations.
The company did not specifically respond to my question about why the ship sailed into forecasted poor weather, except to say that “the Viking Sky is an Ocean-going vessel built to the highest standards. It is designed to sail worldwide.” The spokesperson added that the company is conducting an internal investigation. The stranded Norway cruise ship has restarted with three of four engines now working, Joint Rescue Centre for Southern Norway spokesman Per Fjeld tells CNN. "Throughout all of this, our first priority was for the safety and well-being of our passengers and our crew," Viking Ocean Cruises said in a statement, thanking Norwegian emergency services and local residents for their support. "For the present, our conclusion is that the engine failure was directly caused by low oil pressure." "The high risk which the ship, its passengers and crew were exposed to made us decide to investigate the incident," Dag S. Liseth, who heads the Norwegian Accident Investigations Board, said on Monday.
Fincantieri is also recommended to investigate if any other ships designed at the yard may have non-compliant lube oil sump tanks and take necessary action if relevant. The sump tank design is critical to safe engine operation, yet Lloyd’s Register did not independently verify compliance with either the engine manufacturer’s instructions, the SOLAS regulation or LR’s own Class Rules. The Norwegian Safety Investigation Authority recommends that Lloyd’s Register review and strengthen the plan approval process to ensure that lube oil sump tanks are designed and built in compliance with the SOLAS regulation and Class Rules. Both organizations agree the root cause of the accident was an insufficient amount of lubricating oil in all the vessel’s operating diesel generators’ lubricating oil sump tanks. In the rough seas with the ship pitching and rolling, the systems lost pressure causing the cruise ship to fully black out. It took 39 minutes until both propulsion motors were operational and the ship had sufficient power to maintain between 1 and 5 knots ahead.
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