particularly the Captain of the Exxon Valdez
Ah yes, lets give the drunk Captain a kicking. The fact that his state of sobriety had absolutely nothing to do with the accident, but everything to do with Exxon policy seems to be beside your point. Nothing but a scapegoat, which is typical when managerial failings come to the fore.
Investigative journalist Greg Palast in 2008 "Forget the drunken skipper fable. As to Captain Joe Hazelwood, he was below decks, sleeping off his bender. At the helm, the third mate never would have collided with Bligh Reef had he looked at his RAYCAS radar. But the radar was not turned on. In fact, the tanker's radar was left broken and disabled for more than a year before the disaster, and Exxon management knew it. It was [in Exxon's view] just too expensive to fix and operate." Exxon blamed Captain Hazelwood for the grounding of the tanker. Other factors, according to an M.I.T. course entitled "Software System Safety" by Professor Nancy G. Leveson, included:
1. Tanker crews were not told that the previous practice of the Coast Guard tracking ships out to Bligh reef had ceased.
2. The oil industry promised, but never installed, state-of-the-art iceberg monitoring equipment.
3. Exxon Valdez was sailing outside the normal sea lane to avoid small icebergs thought to be in the area.
4. The 1989 tanker crew was half the size of the 1977 crew, worked 12−14 hour shifts, plus overtime. The crew was rushing to leave Valdez with a load of oil.
5. Coast Guard tanker inspections in Valdez were not done, and the number of staff was reduced.
From the NTSB -
The Safety Board considers the reduced manning practices of the Exxon Shipping Company generally incautious and without apparent justification from the standpoint of safety. The financial advantage derived from eliminating officers and crew from each vessel does not seem to justify incurring the foreseeable risks of serious accident. Regarding company manning practices that related to the EXXON VALDEZ, the Safety Board does not believe that the Exxon Shipping Company showed sufficient regard for the known debilitations that occur as a result of crewmember fatigue. Furthermore, the Safety Board could find no reasonable explanation for the following: the absence of company programs to ensure that crewmembers observed hours - of - service regulations ; the lack of procedures to ensure that at least one rested deck officer , in addition to the master, was available for watch at departure; the practice of rating a crewmember’s performance in part according to willingness to work overtime, thus giving an incentive to work an excessive number of hours; and the indiscriminate increase in work loads and standby time throughout the fleet before and after the grounding of the EXXON VALDEZ.
The Exxon Seamen's Union officials testified during depositions that the
sea passages for voyages between Alaska and California were not long enough for conducting necessary maintenance or permitting thorough crew rest between the around-the-clock demands of cargo handling in port. When the current minimum crew requirements were established for the EXXON VALDEZ, the vessel had been scheduled for the Valdez-Panamanian trade. But that trade was discontinued after December 1988, and the EXXON VALDEZ then began operating regularly between Valdez and ports in California. The mates on the EXXON VALDEZ were usually fatigued after cargo handling operations in Valdez, and the vessel usually put to sea with a fatigued crew.
Re the Captains alcohol issues Exxon failed again. From the NTSB -
The Exxon alcohol policy directive in effect during 1985 when the master
underwent treatment instructs supervisors to refer to the medical department employees whose job performance is unsatisfactory owing to the perceived use of alcohol. In this case, the master’s supervisor was apparently unaware that the master had an alcohol dependency problem prior to his hospitalization . Upon learning of his dependency problem, his supervisor, according to Exxon procedures, was supposed to have referred his case to the medical department. The personnel documents provided by Exxon showed t hat a followup treatment program was recommended by the attending physician at the hospital . While it is documented that the master was given a 90-day leave of absence, no documents were provided to establish that this recommended outpatient treatment program was followed or that his progress was monitored by management. Nor does the Exxon medical department appear to have contacted the hospital where he received in - patient treatment. The lack of records suggests that no guidance, advice, or information was provided by Exxon management or the Exxon medical department to the master’s supervisor.
Furthermore, no one in the Exxon management structure seems to have consulted an expert on alcoholism about the following issues: the kind of support the master would need when he resumed his work, the kind of supervision and monitoring he would need, the chances that he would resume drinking , the signs that might indicate that he had resumed drinking , and the kind of assignments he could perform without risking his sobriety . The president of Exxon Shipping Company testified that the master “thought he was the most scrutinized employee in the company.” If this scrutiny did take place, written records either do not exist regarding his supervision and evaluations during this period or the records have not been provided, except one that was constructed from memory after the grounding. Furthermore, the solitary nature of a master‘s job is not conducive to monitoring; thus, visits to his vessel during short port calls are not likely to have been very effective in determining whether the master was abstaining from alcohol. Some personnel performance records (evaluations) were unsigned; thus, their authenticity could not be established. It must be surmised from the absence of information that the EXXON management and the medical department were unprepared or unwilling to deal with an alcoholic master and made insufficient effort to become informed or knowledgeable regarding the problems of an alcoholic and the rate of recidivism even under the most ideal conditions. As is well known, a carefully constructed support system that
includes frequent, continuous interaction with the support system is
necessary to prevent an alcoholic from returning to alcohol abuse. In
contrast, it is reasonable to assume that if Exxon had a technical problem,
such as an auto pilot failure, with one of its vessels, either the problem
would be assigned to an expert within the Exxon company structure or an outside consultant would be hired to solve the problem. Considering the
investment Exxon had made in the master, the potential cost of a marine accident in terms of human loss or environmental damage as a result of having an alcohol-impaired master, and the lack of oversight documentation, it can be concluded that the Exxon corporate management demonstrated inadequate knowledge of and concern about the seriousness of having an alcohol-impaired master. The Safety Board concludes that Exxon should have removed the master from seagoing employment until there was ample proof that he had his alcohol problem under control.
Once again it's a case of management asleep at the wheel. Procedures in place, but management sees fit not to follow. Interesting that they always attempt to document compliance post event.