Has the world gone mad!?!?

Yet ANOTHER Vessel has hit the submerged ship in the English Channel!

A simplified view maybe, but as this this is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world this is like.....

.......CRAP!

I am sure sure this NOTAM'd (tenuous link!) let alone SHP-TAM'd!!!!

Surely HM Coastguard aren't that busy!

I thought that the tankers had a TCAS-ish warning system.

(Maybe it's a "TCAS warning - your supertanker will hit in 28 hours!!)

And BOTH ships that hit sailed from local ports!!!!

I find keeping fast moving aircraft in a 3D enviroment hard - but what do the coastguards do all day???

Well, according to HM coastguard, the submerged ship is well marked with buoys and is also marked with a radio beacon transmitting a constant warning of the hazard. Seems more like a lookout issue than coastguard. You can't help some people!

Don't blame the coastgaurd!

BUT, consider;
Foreign flagged ships operating on shoestring budgets, tired crews, minimal training,differing licensing standards, language difficulties, very poor pay, low motivation, complacency (driven by imporoved reliability of equipment), poor international monitoring of safety standards, - all perhaps caused by management putting cost issues ahead of safety in todays marine world.

Couldn't happen to avaition though could it????

There was a superb letter in Friday's Daily Telegraph from a current merchant skipper detailing the current siruation wrt navigation in the English Channel.

Seems like we in aviation are the lucky ones!!

Shuttleworth, I thought you were talking about Aviation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!