CLIA urges IMO to stress mandatory reporting of casualties

Moreover, CLIA asked IMO to consider revising the SOLAS Convention to ‘expressly and more clearly emphasize the mandatory reporting requirements.’

In a submission this week to IMO’s Marine Safety Committee, CLIA said it recently undertook an effort with the IMO Secretariat to verify the information in IMO’s marine casualty database. This resulted in adding a total of 15 casualties to the list.

‘As we worked through reconciling existing IMO casualty data with the best data presently available to our industry, we found substantial inconsistency in reporting,’ CLIA said.

The submission called Member States’ attention to the provisions in the mandatory IMO Casualty Investigation Code, and those in an MSC-Marine Environment Protection Committee circular.

CLIA went on to request IMO Member States consider revising SOLAS Chapter XI-1, Regulation 6 to ‘expressly and more clearly emphasize the mandatory reporting requirements regarding very serious casualties.’

It is anticipated the Italian maritime authorities will present the preliminary results of their Costa Concordia investigation during the next MSC session, May 16-25 at IMO headquarters.

Recommendations will be proposed at that stage for further IMO debate, possibly leading to new international regulations.

Meanwhile, CLIA is sharing the findings of its operational safety review with the industry, IMO and governments on an on-going basis.

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