The Herald of Free Enterprise

On 06 March 1987, car and passenger ferry Herald of Free Enterprise capsized onto its side one mile out after leaving the Belgium port of Zeebugge. 193 persons lost their lives.

The ferry front loading doors had been mistakenly  left open. The subsequent bow wave flooded the lower deck, making the ferry unstable and leading to capsize.

The subsequent inquiry was a wake up call to maritime operations and lead to sweeping changes to all similar operations

 

For consideration;

• Management indifference to low crew moral
• Poor relationship between shore based management and ship crew
• Very poor leadership at all levels
• Significant time commercial pressures in a competitive market
• Previous concerns about waves breaking on bow doors were ignored
• Known phenonemon of ‘Shallow water effect’ in this harbour
• Requests for door lock indications were refused
• Management assumption of ships masters raising all safety concerns
• Reliance on ‘everyone doing their jobs’ to be the only final redundancy
• Dover – Zeebrugge route not designed for this type of ferry
• Same error made by sister ship 4 years before
• Loading facilities at Zeebrugge unsuitable for this ferry configuration
• Many crew interpersonal issues not addressed
• There was a “disease of sloppiness” and negligence at every level of the corporation’s hierarchy
• Communication procedures where highly inadequate