Industry Unites on Enclosed Space Deaths

Appalled that deaths in enclosed spaces continue to be all too frequent occurrences in the shipping industry, the Maritime Professional Council of the United Kingdom (MPC) has announced its support for fundamental changes to ship operation and design.

MPC member InterManager has been at the forefront of raising this issue where, it says, seemingly innocuous compartments, cargo holds and fuel tanks, vital for storage and operation on board any vessel, have become graveyards for far too many seafarers due to a lack of attention, regulation, and understanding.

A surge of enclosed space related deaths on ships in late 2023 led InterManager to call on the shipping industry to work together to improve safety in these challenging onboard areas. In December last year the deaths of three seafarers and five shore workers in accidents in enclosed spaces in just seven days brought the total known deaths in these dangerous areas of vessels in 2023 to 31.

InterManager records these incidents on behalf of the wider shipping community. Its statistics show that since 1996, 310 people lost their lives in enclosed spaces on ships – 224 seafarers and 86 shore personnel in 197 accidents.

InterManager's secretary general Captain Kuba Szymanski warns: “It's a minefield. We’ve created an unsafe environment, and then we blame people for not navigating it properly. It’s absurd.”

He highlights the ineffectiveness of IMO regulations introduced in 2011 that were intended to prevent enclosed space fatalities. “Since 2011, an increase in fatalities in our data is related to the introduction of new IMO introduced regulation. This regulation hoped to eradicate all enclosed space accidents. But it was evident that it didn’t because the shipping industry was barking up the wrong tree.” Specifically, he argued: “One of the biggest issues is the flawed design of enclosed spaces.” This particularly includes cargo hold access arrangements.

“As an industry,” Szymanski said, “we need to have one voice, one approach to safety. Fragmented standards and practices only put lives at risk.”
The formation this year of a pan-maritime industry group and Enclosed Space Entry – Joint Industry Workshop meetings, demonstrates the industry's commitment to addressing this issue. Two Workshops, with the most recent this July, have taken place at the Oil Companies International Marine Forum (OCIMF) office in London.

The MPC believes the creation of the group to provide a single voice on enclosed space deaths is a major step forward. The new group has undertaken a holistic review of all contributory factors across operational, commercial, technical and training functions with all parties involved in the decision-making process across the two workshops. The initial workshop helped to build a deeper appreciation of the issue, and during the second one, Intermanager provided data and analytics on enclosed space accidents and fatalities.

The output of these two workshops has not just been a set of actions but, crucially, a roadmap for action to stop enclosed space deaths on ships. The industry group will meet again before the end of the year to review progress and continue to develop specific outputs. Involvement is crucial to the success of these actions, says MPC as its members look forward to continued active participation.

Meanwhile the industry group is gathering information on enclosed space accidents, with InterManager collating the responses. The information will be kept strictly confidential and can be sent to [email protected] along with the approximate date, the ship’s name and a brief description of the accident. The MPC stresses that data gathering is essential, and the ship’s name is needed to reduce the possibility of counting an accident several times but it will not be disclosed publicly.