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Commercial Vessel Incidents
In 2005 and 2006, there were 1354 incidents involving at least one commercial vessel. A breakdown of these incidents is provided below:
|
2005 |
2006 |
Total |
Incidents involving commercial vessels |
662 |
692 |
1354 |
% of all incidents |
44.1 |
43.9 |
44.0 |
The top 10 incident types in commercial vessel incidents are shown below:
Rank |
Incident Type |
2005-2006 |
% of Total |
1 |
Collision of Vessels |
264 |
19.5 |
2 |
Unintentional Grounding |
241 |
17.8 |
3 |
Other |
156 |
11.5 |
4 |
Collision with fixed object |
102 |
7.5 |
5 |
Falls within vessel |
66 |
4.9 |
6 |
Other onboard injury |
51 |
3.8 |
7 |
Sinking |
47 |
3.5 |
8 |
Fire |
44 |
3.2 |
9 |
Person overboard |
44 |
3.2 |
10 |
Swamping |
41 |
3.0 |
When compared with all incidents, unintentional groundings, collisions with a fixed object and falls within vessels are over-represented in commercial vessel incidents (see Incidents by Type page for a comparison).
The top 10 contributing factors in commercial vessel incidents are provided below:
Rank |
Contributing Factor |
2005-2006 |
% of Total |
1 |
Wind/sea state |
278 |
14.5 |
2 |
Error of Judgment |
254 |
13.2 |
3 |
Navigational error |
126 |
6.6 |
4 |
Equipment – Machinery |
112 |
5.8 |
5 |
Failure to keep a proper lookout |
104 |
5.4 |
6 |
Inexperience |
91 |
4.7 |
7 |
Floating or submerged object |
72 |
3.7 |
8 |
Equipment - Hull failure |
53 |
2.8 |
9 |
Tidal conditions |
49 |
2.5 |
10 |
Excessive speed |
36 |
1.9 |
When compared with all incidents, navigational error and floating or submerged object are slightly over-represented in commercial vessel incidents (see Contributing Factors in Incidents page for a comparison), with most of the remainder having similar proportions.
In terms of serious injuries and fatalities in commercial vessel incidents, the following table provides a breakdown of their occurrence in 2005 and 2006:
|
2005 |
2006 |
Total |
Total as % of all fatalities/injuries |
Serious Injury |
43 |
44 |
87 |
27.6 |
Fatality |
7 |
10 |
17 |
19.3 |
Though commercial vessel incidents account for 44% of total incidents, they only account for 19% of total fatalities and 28% of total serious injuries.
Most fatalities occur specifically from fishing vessels, with 65% of all commercial vessel fatalities occurring from fishing vessels. In contrast, only 17% of serious injuries occur from fishing vessels. The largest numbers of serious injuries occur from class 2 – non passenger vessels, making up 38% of all serious injuries. A focus on improving safety of fishing vessels may reduce the number of commercial vessel fatalities.
