Data Safety Assurance

Annabella container ship — Baltic Sea
Domain: Maritime
Year: 2007
Data Categories: Dynamic
Properties Lost: Integrity, Verifiability, Fidelity / Representation

Summary:

Annabella container ship — Baltic Sea

Details:

On the evening of the 25 June 2007 the container ship the Annabella was subjected to heavy seas causing the vessel to pitch and roll heavily. The following morning the ship’s crew discovered that, due to the induced stresses, a “stack of seven 30 ft cargo containers” had collapsed resulting in crushing damage to the lowest containers. A number of these containers were transporting Class 2 Dangerous Goods in the form of Butylene gas.

The Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) concluded that the container stack had been “piled too high both for the particular hold location and the stacking limits of the containers”. The MAIB identified that one of the incident’s contributing factors had been an incorrect loading plan which had been produced by planning software used by the cargo company. The software application should have taken account of the stability and stowage information pertinent to the vessel (as provided by its manufacturer). The application, however, had unknowingly converted the container’s dimensions from 30 ft to 40ft resulting in the wrong stacking limits being detailed. The cargo company passed the loading plan to the shipping terminal prior to it being inputted to the vessel’s on-board loading computer. The computer did not recognize the error and the 40 ft limits were applied. Amongst the MAIB’s conclusions it was noted that, although the master is responsible for the final loading plan, appropriate oversight is difficult in practice in light of the “pace of modern container operations”. The MAIB made the following recommendations in relation to the Information System:

• Loading computer programs should incorporate the full requirements of a vessel’s cargo securing manual and be properly approved to ensure that officers can place full reliance on the information provided; • The availability of a reliable and approved loading computer programme is a factor to be considered in determining an appropriate level of manning for vessels on intensive schedules; • Cargo planning software should be able to recognize and alert planners to the consequences of variable data, such as non-standard container specifications. This incident involved incorrect data, that could have been identified if the software had highlighted the unusual aspects of the data such as the container dimensions to the operator. From a data perspective, the properties that needed to be maintained were Integrity, Verifiability and Fidelity / representation.

Links:

• Marine Accident Investigation Branch report 21 — report on the Investigation of the Collapse of Cargo Containers Annabella Baltic Sea 26 February 2007 [online] available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/547c7032e5274a429000007d/Annabellareport.pdf
  (accessed 17 January 2021)