19 April 2014

Cowardice and incompetence on the Yellow Sea

Even a dryland farmer in Kansas who has never left the county in which he was born knows intuitively that when a ship begins capsizing, it’s time to get everyone topside, in lifejackets, and into boats or rafts while that’s still possible.

But on the South Korean ferry Sewol, hundreds of passengers died because the crew ordered them to stay below, say some reports, to prevent panic on deck. Other reports say the 69-year-old captain was one of the first to leave the ship.

We don’t yet know why the ferry capsized. It made a sharp turn after sunrise, then began listing, a sequence strongly suggesting that improperly secured vehicles and cargo broke loose and shifted to one side, causing the ship to roll over. The weather was wet, but not windy.

But we do know that only one of dozens of lifeboats and rafts was deployed, that the crew was poorly trained, and that the level of incompetence and cowardice was high. Some crew members did their duty, helping passengers to safety, but others, including the captain, helped themselves and no one else. The captain’s conduct reminds one of the conduct of the hapless captain of the Costa Concordia, who recklessly ran his ship on a reef, then left his grounded vessel before all the passengers and the rest of the crew were off. A captain should not go down with his ship, but when a ship is abandoned, the captain must be the last to leave.

I suspect this behavior may become the norm. Seafaring, like railroading, is no longer a glamourous occupation. It no longer attracts many of the best people. The Sewol was rolling over, but not so quickly there was not time to get everyone off in an orderly manner. The weather was wet, but no gale was raging. Abandoning ship is the last option, but it must be exercised while still possible to do so calmly and efficiently. Better training most certainly would have helped, but what the Sewol really needed were better people for its crew.