NTSB Probes Pilot in Fatal Ferry Accident

[TeeYiYi]

NTSB Probes Pilot in Fatal Ferry Accident
By LARRY McSHANE

NEW YORK (AP) - Authorities on Thursday
investigated whether a Staten Island ferry pilot
lost consciousness during a trip across a
windy New York Harbor before the mighty
vessel slammed into a pier, killing 10 people and injuring 42 others, including
three who lost limbs.

The pilot bolted the scene so quickly that he left behind his gear and his keys, then
broke into his house where he slit his wrists and shot himself with a pellet gun, a
law enforcement source told The Associated Press. The source spoke on
condition of anonymity.

The pilot, identified by the source as Richard Smith, was in critical condition
Wednesday night after surgery, St. Vincent's Hospital said. It was the same
hospital where 22 victims - including at least one amputee - were rushed after the
3:20 p.m. crash, the city's worst mass transit accident in at least a generation.

A co-worker of Smith told authorities the pilot had been asleep, slumped over the
controls, the source said.

More: http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?floc=NW_1-T&oldflok=FF-APO-1110&idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20031016%2F102502928.htm&sc=1110&photoid=20031015XNR107

TYY

[NewYorkerfromMass]

1. I can't believe there's no co-pilot

or other safeguard to prevent unmanned movement.
I rode the SI ferry for 3 years. The harbor is a crowded and potentially dangerous route and docking at the slips requires tremendous skill at maneuvering these enormous hulking boats. The range of skill in docking I witnessed was quite varied. Some were good and some not so.
Yet another inexcusable, needless accident which is barbaric in this day and age.

[TeeYiYi]

2. The accident happened 'before' arriving at the docking slips . . .

Witnesses said the boat never appeared to slow down before it hit a maintenance
pier, hundreds of feet from the slips where the ferries normally dock. The ferry was
immediately backed up and moved to one of the passenger slips, where rescue
crews began their work.

TYY

[NewYorkerfromMass]

3. the boat never slowed down because there was no one to pilot it.

This was unbelievable CRIMINAL negligence on the part of the crew to leave the pilot unattended. I just read the Times article. This was the assistant captain. WHERE the FUCK was the captain? (watching the pre-game show for the ALCS no doubt.)
If the captain were anywhere near the pilot house he would have recognized the boat was umanned a good 5 minutes before impact. which is the point where the engines are normally slowed and then reversed to begin the approach to the slip.
I can't fucking stand it when such a stupid needless accident happens due to such fucking unbelievable negligence. The goddamned pilot had the right idea to take his own life afterwards.... too bad it won't bring any of the dead back or grow some new limbs.
Oh did I mention that I am pissed off?

[TeeYiYi]

4. "the craft suddenly veered crazily" . . .

Evan Robinson, a musician waiting for a ferry on Staten Island, said he watched
as the craft suddenly veered crazily. Two other witnesses said the ferry appeared
to speed up when it should have slowed down for docking.

``I looked on in disbelief,'' Robinson said. ``I said, `Oh, my God, he's going to
crash!'''

``The ferry was coming too fast,'' said witness William Gonzalez, who lives nearby.
``They had no control to stop the boat.''

Corchado said it felt as if the ferry accelerated as it approached land, waking him
as he napped on the trip home. He ran away from the front of the boat to safety.
``My soul's killing me a little bit,'' he said.

TYY

[gauguin57]

5. lack of blood-pressure meds caused crash?

According to NY Post,

http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/8239.htm

Asst. Capt. Richard Jeffrey Smith, "told investigators that the crash occurred because he forgot to take his high blood pressure medication and blacked out. When he woke up, he claimed he accidentally shifted into full throttle, sending the vessel hurtling into the Staten Island Ferry terminal at high speed."

[NewYorkerfromMass]

6. utter negligence on the part of NYC DOT to allow this to happen

there are "deadman" switches and such on trains- and why no co-pilot and other failsafes here? NYC has got some big damage claims coming up because of this.
Oh and I am willing to bet the very cushy union rules require there be 2 crew in the pilot house at all times regardless of safety benefit.

[maxsolomon]

7. it sounds like there wasn't a 2 man crew in the pilot house

otherwise one guy couldn't have screwed up so monumentally.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

8. You know just because a union rule requires 2 people for a job

doesn't mean they fulfill the obligation each and every moment.

[Sideways]

10. As A Fellow Dem I Must Ask

Why are you bashing unions? And at this moment? Something stinks here and I think it might be you.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

13. Something stinks here alright

the irresponsible co-pilot who abandoned his post.

And I'm not bashing unions. They do a very good job at protecting their members and making sure they get good pay and positions. The problem is when workers get complacent and become slackers.

[Jazzgirl]

15. Deadman switches on trains

are gone. At least on freight trains.

Jazzgirl

[NewYorkerfromMass]

16. not on NYC subway trains

NYC is usually very good about these things. usually.... :-(

[TeeYiYi]

9. My question is . . .

. . . where was the other captain? Was he even in the same room as the guy that passed out? It sounds like it was the assistant captain that lost consciousness. Why was it too late for the 'other captain' to get control of the ship? Where was he? The bathroom? Why not at the controls with the assistant?

"The assistant captain at the controls collapsed," McMahon said. "By the time the other captain
could get control of the ship, it was too late."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36027-2003Oct16.html

TYY

[speckledgator]

11. I have taken the SI ferry

more than once and I was very complacent...seemed like a cake walk...a kind of Disney ride writ large. I don't feel that way anymore.
And that captain must have felt some responsibility or guilt to run home and try, however ineptly, to off himself

[TeeYiYi]

12. I too wonder what was going through his head . . .

. . . to leave the scene that quickly, unless he had already assessed the magnitude of the damage done and freaked out. Maybe he went into shock.
On the NBC Evening News they said that his blood test came back negative for alcohol . . .

I haven't heard much about the actual captain of the ship. What's his story? Everyone is blaming the guy that ran home but what about the captain?

TYY

[NewYorkerfromMass]

14. The captain is guilty of abandoning his post

unless his heart medecine also made him pass out.

[TeeYiYi]

17. The captain was NOT in the pilot house . . .

. . . Witneseses said that the Captain was at the other end of the boat and had to make his way back to the end of the boat where the pilot house was and where he found the assistant captain slumped over the controls. Apparently the captain, is denying this but at least the truth is coming out . . .

Dereliction of duty turns deadly


This much appears certain now about the Staten Island ferry crash: Ten New Yorkers surely would not have
died had the boat's captain been where he belonged - in the pilot house - as the runaway craft approached its
berth.

If Capt. Michael Gansas had been at his station, he would have been in close quarters with Richard Smith,
the pilot who, for unexplained reasons, plowed the ferry into a dock, turning it into a floating abattoir.

If Gansas had been on post, it is virtually certain that he could have taken control from Smith, who has told
investigators that he blacked out on the trip from Manhattan.

If Gansas had followed regulations, there is every reason to believe that Pio Canini, Louis Robinson, Joseph
Bagarozza, Vincent Ferrante, John Valinski, Darius Marshall, Guillermo Paguay, John Healy, Frank Sullivan
and one unidentified woman would be walking God's Earth this morning.

The evidence, incomplete as it is, so far points to dereliction of duty of the highest order. Gansas is denying
responsibility. It is imperative that the authorities conduct a full inquiry to establish what happened,
determine culpability, exact punishment and impose safeguards to ensure that such carnage never recurs.

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/127762p-114099c.html

TYY