Fire in engine room on beam trawler vessel De Kaper

Location: 30 miles off Hanstholm, Denmark.

From:
Marine Accident Investigation Branch
Published
23 January 2015
Vessel type:
Fishing vessel
Report type:
Investigation report
Date of occurrence:
12 February 1999

Accident Investigation Report: De Kaper

Read our marine accident investigation report, which includes what happened, actions taken and subsequent recommendations:

de kaper.pdf (802.49 kb)

Summary

On 12 February 1999 the UK registered beam trawler De Kaper (CY 269) was trawling about 30 miles off the coast of Denmark. An engine room fire was detected which quickly spread because the door was hooked open. The crew eventually had to abandon the vessel and were rescued from a liferaft to another fishing vessel within minutes. After the fire was extinguished De Kaper was towed into Hanstholm.

Safety Issues

  • poor design of the vessel led to the crew’s practice of hooking the engine room door open
  • a deficient safety regime on board De Kaper allowed the danger of hooking the door open to go unrecognised

Recommendations

A recommendation has been issued to the Maritime and Coastguard Agency.

This report was published in 1999.

Updates to this page

Published 23 January 2015
Contents