Five years after 34 souls died aboard a chartered diving boat that was anchored off the coast of the Channel Islands, the National Transportation Safety Board is again urging the U.S. Coast Guard to enact new safety regulations in hopes of preventing further tragedies.
On Monday, surviving family members and NTSB officials gathered at the Santa Barbara waterfront to honor those who lost their lives aboard the Conception dive boat in 2019, and renew calls for action.
The Conception sank on Sept. 2, 2019, while it was anchored off of Santa Cruz Island, about 25 miles south of Santa Barbara. A fire broke out on board, quickly engulfing the vessel and trapping 33 passengers and one crewmember below deck. The captain of the boat, Jerry Boylan of Santa Barbara, was eventually found guilty of “seaman’s manslaughter.”
NTSB Board Chair Jennifer Homendy, who’s been the main official representing the federal agency in its investigation of the historic maritime disaster, used Monday’s ceremony to urge the Coast Guard to enact new regulations to prevent further tragedies, in particular, requiring Safety Management Systems for all U.S. passenger vessels.
A Safety Management System, or SMS, is a process to ensure that rules and procedures related to safe operations are in place, officials said. It covers preventative maintenance and emergency procedures and specifies crewmember duties and responsibilities, NTSB officials said.
“I’m here to honor, remember, the 34 victims and once again demand action, action to implement NTSB’s safety recommendations that were issued four years ago,” Homendy said, adding that the recommendations, if implemented, would save lives and “could have saved the 34 people who died on board the Conception.”
The NTSB is tasked with investigating transportation disasters and can make recommendations based upon its findings, but it does not have legal authority to issue new rules or regulations.
After the Conception disaster, the NTSB issued recommendations that it believed may have prevented the tragedy from unfolding.
It recommended all passenger vessels that offer overnight accommodations to have interconnected smoke detectors that trigger all devices if smoke or fire is detected — something Conception didn’t have.
The agency also suggested a federal inspection procedure be developed to verify that small passenger vessel owners and operators conduct “roving patrols,” meaning one crewmember is awake at all times to monitor for emergency — something Conception didn’t have either.
The NTSB also recommended a requirement for operators to ensure passengers and crew have additional exit routes and that existing routes aren’t blocked or obstructed.
Those recommendations were made as part of the NTSB’s final report regarding the sinking of Conception, which was issued in 2020. But Homendy said the Coast Guard did not take any action on the recommendations until Congress got involved in 2021.
Despite implementing some of the NTSB’s recommendations, Homendy said the Coast Guard continues to ignore its call for all passenger vessels to have a safety management system—a recommendation her agency has repeatedly made over the past decade-plus.
“The NTSB first recommended SMS in the marine mode 20 years ago, and specifically called for it on small passenger vessels since 2012,” Homendy said in a release issued by the NTSB later Monday. “Additionally, Congress authorized the Coast Guard to mandate SMS in 2010. It’s 2024, and here we are, with no action.”
Homendy continued by saying that the NTSB knows its recommendations will save lives and urged the Coast Guard to “finish its work” to enact solutions to prevent further tragedies in our nation’s waters.
During her remarks Monday, Homendy posed the following questions to those in attendance:
“How many times do we have to call on the Coast Guard to act? How many more people need to get injured? How many more people need to die? How many more times does Congress need to keep telling the Coast Guard to do something?”
As part of Monday’s anniversary, the NTSB sent letters to both the Coast Guard Commandant and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, urging them to implement SMS procedures on passenger vessels.
A similar letter was sent to the Coast Guard last year, Homendy said, but it “spurred no action.”
To read Homendy’s full remarks from Monday’s ceremony, click here.