Cruise Ship Fire
Pullmantur Cruises MV Zenith
August 18, 2009
I am sorry folks, but that does not sound like a small fire in my experience – 90+ minutes? Was the fact that the MV Zenith left port some 11 hours behind schedule mean there was a lot more damage or post incident cleaning to done; wiping down bulkheads from smoke contamination etc? The Zenith eventually departed Stockholm just after 05:00 hrs [LT] the following morning (Wednesday 19th) instead of her allotted departure time at 18:00 hrs the previous evening, being forced to cancel her scheduled call in Tallinn (I love that place by the way) and rather, make her way directly to St Petersburg.
(5) All the contradictions – one report from the Swedish morning newspaper Dagens Nyheter appear to have been informed that the fire broke out on ‘the front end of a lower deck’ yet another report in Wikipedia stated ‘It was damaged at the stern at 2009-08-18 when a fire broke out’
Eyewitness accounts add further intrigue to the incident, if indeed there is any intrigue to be had; I am just kicking the ball around here that’s all, but still – a 90+ minute fire does appear to have taken place aboard the MV Zenith? The Aftonbladet reported passengers were being lowered into the water on lifeboats as well as carried off on stretchers.
Policeman Björn Engstroem, a Stockholm police spokesman, said that apart from a few crewmembers everyone had been evacuated, the fire being put out in 10 minutes by the people on the ship and the fire brigade. Finally the eyewitness said, "The fire is on deck three, according to a passenger I met outside the ferry," Björn Grinder adding “about a hundred people had flowed out". Grinder was also quoted as saying, “the fire was so vigorous that people were jumping into the water”
From all my collective years of experience in fire safety and dealing with fires whether domestic or on ships, I believe there may be more to this incident than initially first thought? If the fire did indeed take place on deck 3 as some have speculated, then this would in all probability be in the crew area and thus out of sight to the passengers, the MV Zenith appearing to allocate the uppermost Sun Deck down to the Florida Deck for passengers alone. I can only assume this by looking at the limited deck plans available.
The fire has been reported as occurring in both the forward and stern of the vessel, so once again reports are not precise but that aside, at this deck level and with this size of ship, I believe this deck would be situated below the water line and therefore these are crew areas and off limits to passengers.
You hardly book a cruise to sit under the water line do you, well unless you had previously served on Los Angeles (SSN) class submarines and could not shake old habits? I digress, such areas this low down on a cruise ship, if not crew quarters are quite often utilized as storage area’s or depending on the particular vessel, possibly mooring decks. Again the deck plans for this ship are limited to gauge the full extent and layout of this particular cruise ship.
So with that in mind, only the MV Zenith’s crew would be able to see the full extent of the fire which to all intents and purposes, appears to have been fought for over 90 minutes, unless ‘it was actually’ extinguished within the ten minutes as indicated to the police; obviously everyone then choosing to sit down for tea, cake and medals for 70 minutes?? Ummmmmm?
Certainly fire fighters were seen to enter the Zenith wearing Breathing Apparatus (BA) and to me, with the additional 11 hour delay in sailing, the reported 90 minutes that passed before the fire services ‘STOP’ message was passed together with the conflicting reports highlighted, shouts to me as a fire that was much more serious than may have been intimated and onboard fire safety procedures were ‘possibly’ not adhered to. Thankfully there were no reported serious injuries, the most important factor in all this.
The Zenith is a former Celebrity Cruises ship that was later transferred to Pullmantur when Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd; Celebrity's parent company, bought the Spanish cruise line in 2007. Remodeled in 2006 and with a nod towards Art Deco, she weighs in at 47,255 GT (gross tonnage), length 682.41 ft, beam 95.14 ft and draught 23.62 ft, she has 5 passenger decks and is able to carry 1774 passengers, 670 crew and has a cruising speed of about 21.5 knots. Her current port of registry since 2002 is in Nassau, Bahamas.
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