Recommendation Date
Recipient Name
MSA
Text
Draft an amendment to the Maritime Transport Act 1994 for the Minister’s consideration, to require masters or operators to report accidents to the head office of the Maritime Safety Authority within specified timeframes. Initial notification should be within 4 hours and a completed accident report within 3 days.
Reply Text
The Maritime Safety Authority cannot accept this recommendation in its current form. As per our letter of 17th December in response to the preliminary recommendation (which is identical to the final recommendation), we do not support setting arbitrary time constraints for the reporting of accidents, as this may not reflect the reality of the situation many Masters find themselves in after an accident occurs.
Section 31 of the Maritime Transport Act 1994 requires mishaps, accidents and incidents to be notified to the authority “as soon as practicable” by the Master.
The current arrangement allows the Master of the vessel to focus on the primary responsibility of ensuring the safety of life, environment and property after an accident rather than being distracted by prescriptive reporting requirements specified within the legislation. This is particularly so with smaller operators, to whom any amendment to the MTA94 would apply equally to those operators who may have larger resources available.
We do, however, appreciate that there is some confusion within industry as to the interpretation of “as soon as practicable” for the reporting of incidents. For this reason the Maritime Safety Authority will be communicating with industry providing guidance as to what would be reasonably expected in reporting of accidents. This communication will occur when we implement recommendations 088/04 and 095/04 which we consider acceptable in an amended form.
Section 31 of the Maritime Transport Act 1994 requires mishaps, accidents and incidents to be notified to the authority “as soon as practicable” by the Master.
The current arrangement allows the Master of the vessel to focus on the primary responsibility of ensuring the safety of life, environment and property after an accident rather than being distracted by prescriptive reporting requirements specified within the legislation. This is particularly so with smaller operators, to whom any amendment to the MTA94 would apply equally to those operators who may have larger resources available.
We do, however, appreciate that there is some confusion within industry as to the interpretation of “as soon as practicable” for the reporting of incidents. For this reason the Maritime Safety Authority will be communicating with industry providing guidance as to what would be reasonably expected in reporting of accidents. This communication will occur when we implement recommendations 088/04 and 095/04 which we consider acceptable in an amended form.
Related Investigation(s)