Stories, News & Updates...

NIOSH Fishing Program on the Chopping Block

Thu, 9 Jun 2011 12:53:23 -0700

Fishing is America's deadliest job--but it's far safer now than it once was thanks to researcher Jennifer Lincoln at the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) in Anchorage. Lincoln’s work is the definition of federal money well spent. She does the research to identify hazards in specific fleets, then works closely with industry to develop sensible safety programs that have saved dozens of lives to date.
Now, NIOSH funding is on the chopping block. Tell your elected officials that you care about the science that saves workers' lives. Type in your zip code here for contact forms for your senators and representative. The editor of National Fisherman magazine composed a sample letter that’s available here.

Coast Guard Board concludes hull fracture doomed ship

Tue, 11 Jan 2011 08:34:51 -0800

There’s plenty to analyze in the Coast Guard’s 150-page report on the loss of the Alaska Ranger, the subject of my book, Deadliest Sea. I found the Board’s conclusion that the boat was most likely doomed by a hull fracture rather than a dropped rudder (as the National Transportation Safety Board concluded in 2009) convincing, The new finding, though, doesn’t change the big picture: The company that owned the ship had recklessly ignored and delayed needed repairs. The safety culture was poor. The boat was not seaworthy and, in my opinion, the Fishing Company of Alaska bears 100% of the blame.
I was somewhat surprised to find that the Coast Guard Marine Board members devoted dozens of pages to analyzing the shortcomings of the Alternative Compliance and Safety Agreement (ACSA) that local Coast Guard inspectors had designed to improve conditions in what they’d recognized was as especially hazardous Head and Gut fleet. While I’ve generally been impressed by the Coast Guard’s willingness to turn the microscope on itself, in this case the criticisms seem needlessly harsh.
As I discuss in Deadliest Sea, the ACSA program had its problems, but overall it was an heroic effort by Coast Guard officers motivated to save lives in the needlessly dangerous fishing industry. If it weren’t for the proactive approach of these inspectors, the safety program would never have gotten off the ground, the Alaska Ranger would have lacked some of the safety equipment that saved lives on that Easter morning, and several dozen other boats in the Head and Gut fleet would be in far worse material condition than they are today. The Marine Board’s recommendation that the ACSA program be abolished seems to me an extreme case of allowing the perfect to be the enemy of the good.
I have more to say about the report on Popular Mechanics web site, and in a guest blog post I wrote for the Coast Guard Compass (the CG’s internal web site).
The Coast Guard’s full report can be downloaded here.
The NTSB report is available here.

NTSB forum on fishing vessel safety is underway

Wed, 13 Oct 2010 12:52:56 -0700

The federal National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is hosting a comprehensive forum on fishing vessel safety today and tomorrow in Washington, DC.
You can link to a live web cast of the event here.
Earlier today, several of the safety experts whose expertise I relied on in Deadliest Sea spoke to the assembled NTSB board members, Coast Guard officials, and commercial fishermen and vessel owners.
Here is the forum agenda, as well as links to many crucial safety studies.

At Last! Congress passes bill to improve fishing safety

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 10:05:41 -0700

After years in limbo, the Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2010 was sent to President Obama’s desk early this morning. The expansive Act includes long-sought legislation that will help to ensure commercial fishing vessels are seaworthy, and that their crews are well-trained.
Commercial fishing is the most dangerous job in the United States, largely because so many ships sink out from under their crews each year. The new legislation will require new, large fishing boats to meet standards set by independent classification societies and require older boats over 50 feet to meet alternative seaworthiness requirements that will be phased in over the next decade.
A link to the relevant legislation is here.
Here’s a summary of the Maritime Safety portion of the Act, H.R. 3619:
“Enhances marine safety. Establishes safety equipment and construction standards for uninspected commercial fishing vessels operating beyond three nautical miles of the coast of the United States. Requires fishing vessels of certain sizes and those that undergo substantial changes to comply with loadline regulations; compliance with the program will be certified by a classification society. Requires certain vessels to maintain official logbooks and log the service hours of seamen, their injuries, and their illnesses. Authorizes the Coast Guard to terminate the operation of vessels for “unsafe operation”. Prohibits approval of survival craft as a safety device unless the craft ensures that no part of an individual is immersed in water. Requires “safety management systems” on certain passenger vessels that establish safety and environmental protection policies and procedures for reporting accidents and responding to emergency situations. Permits seamen who suffer discrimination because they report safety violations to use the same Department of Labor complaint process that is currently available to workers in the other transportation modes.”

Fishing once again proves to be America’s deadliest job

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 13:57:20 -0700

I doubt too many people familiar with the world of commercial fishing—or with my book, Deadliest Sea—will be surprised by this week’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report which concludes that in 2009 commercial fishing was once again the single deadliest job in the United States.
Overall, fatal workplace accidents were down in 2009, from 5,214 in 2008 to an estimated 4,340 in 2009 (the drop is due in part to all those unemployed and underemployed Americans who spent less time on the job). Fatalities among miners, construction workers, and loggers all took a dive. Not so for fishermen.
The nationwide occupational fatal injury rate in 2009 was 3.3. deaths per 100,000 workers. Fishermen, meanwhile, died at a rate of 200 per 100,000 full-time workers. The next highest death rate was for loggers, with 61.8 deaths per 100,000 workers. Roofers had a rate of 34.7, garbagemen 25.2, and truck drivers 18.3.
Click here for the BLS news release and scroll down for a chart of the most dangerous jobs.

Reviews in The Washington Post & Anchorage Daily News

Sun, 1 Aug 2010 16:09:09 -0700

In the past couple weeks, Deadliest Sea has been covered in newspapers including the Washington Post, and the Anchorage Daily News!
A review by Ken Ringle that first ran in the Post has since been syndicated in both the Miami Herald and the Seattle Times. An excerpt: “Once the rescue call goes out, you are with [Thompson] every minute, weighing the vulnerability of a ripped survival suit in 35-degree water, searching the storm-whipped darkness for the flickering strobe lights of near-dead survivors, and thrusting baked potatoes against the skin of hypothermic victims.... The measured skill and courage of our least swaggering armed service is as inspiring to read about as it is to witness.”
Read the full review here.

New report reveals vessel loss still #1 cause of death at sea

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 10:36:01 -0700

A paper in the current edition of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report reveals some new statistics about fatality rates in the commercial fishing industry, and confirms some of the themes I touch on in Deadliest Sea.
The paper is authored by Dr. Jennifer Lincoln of the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), who also gathered data about survival factors after the Alaska Ranger disaster. Some of the more interesting findings of her newest paper:
• 504 U.S. commercial fishermen died between 2000 and 2009. Of those, 261 deaths (52%) occurred after a vessel disaster. Flooding was the most common initiating event of these tragedies (28%), followed by vessel instability (18%), and high seas (18%).
• Another 155 deaths (33%) were the result of a fall overboard. Not a single one of those deceased individuals was wearing a life jacket.
• Though the largest number of deaths occurred off the Coast of Alaska (133 in the ten-year period), when the number of workers and hours worked is considered, the death rate is actually highest in the Northeast groundfish and scallop fisheries and on the Dungeness crab grounds in Oregon.
The full paper is here.

Coast Guard MH-60 Jayhawk crashes off Washington State

Wed, 7 Jul 2010 19:13:42 -0700

Three Coast Guard air crew members died today after their helicopter went down off the coast of Washington State. Though two of the four crew members were reportedly recovered alive soon after the crash, one succumbed to injuries not long afterward. The fourth crew member is in a Seattle hospital recovering from what the Coast Guard reports are non-life-threatening injuries.
A Seattle-based public affairs officer told me this afternoon that it’s too early to determine the cause of the accident, though several eyewitnesses reported to local media that the helicopter collided with a power line before plummeting into the ocean off La Push, Washington. The local utility company confirmed that power cables were down.
The names of the deceased have not yet been released, though all four crew members were based at Air Station Sitka, in the Gulf of Alaska. The crew was flying the helicopter back to Alaska from Elizabeth City, North Carolina, where the helo had been undergoing routine upgrades.
“I grieve with a heavy heart at the news of the death of three members of our Coast Guard family,” 17th Coast Guard District Commander Christopher Colvin said in a statement. “May friends and our Coast Guardsmen around the country bring strength and comfort to the families and crew of Air Station Sitka during this difficult time.”
The 60 Jayhawk is the Coast Guard’s long-range search and rescue (SAR) aircraft. In recent years, fatal accidents have been more common among the service’s smaller helicopter, the HH-65 Dolphin, though another HH-60 went down in the Utah mountains several months ago. The entire crew survived that crash.
Like with the Utah crash, a team of aviators is no doubt already being compiled to investigate the causes—and lessons learned—from today’s tragedy.
Coast Guard press release
Seattle Times article

Deadliest Sea featured on Dutch Harbor NPR station

Wed, 7 Jul 2010 08:27:07 -0700

On Friday I was interviewed by Alexandra Gutierrez of Unalaska Public Radio. The interview is about 20 minutes long and there’s a link to it here.

Booklist praises Deadliest Sea

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 11:22:07 -0700

“Books about disaster in the Alaskan fishing industry are common, but titles as good as this one are rare,” begins the Booklist review of Deadliest Sea. The write-up praises the book as accessible to every interest level, says that it’s thoroughly researched—and warns that it might keep you up all night.