NZCMM - Company Bulletin AUGUST 2022

AUCKLAND BRANCH
Meets at the Remuera Club, Ohinerau St, Remuera Auckland, Lunch meetings 1200, Evenings 1830.
Planned meeting:13 October 2022 Lunch.
Advance Notice (!) 9 August 2023 - Company AGM
For details of all Auckland meetings and events please contact the Branch Secretary.

CHRISTCHURCH BRANCH
For details of planned activities in Christchurch please contact the Branch Secretary.

TAURANGA BRANCH
Meets at the Mt Maunganui RSA. For details etc please contact the Branch Secretary

WELLINGTON BRANCH
Meets at the Bolton Hotel, just off The Terrace in the CBD at Noon on the second Wednesday of each month.
The September meeting is on September 14th at the usual time. The Company's Patron, His Excellency Dr Richard Davies, will be the speaker.
For details of other Wellington meetings and to RSVP please contact the Branch Secretary

Wellington Branch, Report of July Meeting

Captain Ken Watt opened the 13th of July meeting by welcoming guest speaker Naveen Mathew, Acting Chief Investigator of Accidents for the TAIC

Naveen holds a bachelor’s degree in marine engineering and a master’s degree in naval architecture from the University of Southampton. He is leading a multidisciplinary team of Investigators and other subject matter experts to investigate very serious aviation, marine and rail accidents in New Zealand.

Naveen held the attention of the meeting for nearly an hour. Naveen’s talk revolved around the Commission’s objectives, which is to determine the circumstances and causes of accidents and incidents with a view to avoiding similar occurrences in the future. This resonates with a phrase that is etched in the NTSB training centre glass window that says, “From tragedy, we draw knowledge to protect the safety of us all.”

To set the scene, Naveen articulated the introduction of a simple “checklist” as a tool in 1935 which could have avoided prototype Boeing Model 299, 'X13372', the future B-17 prototype, that crashed on take-off, due to locked control surfaces, killing early military aviator and test pilot Major Ployer Peter Hill. Some people cite the inadvertent take-off configuration which caused this accident (forgetting to unlock the control surfaces before takeoff) as the origin of today’s ubiquitous aviation “checklist”. After the introduction of the checklist, to mitigate risk and avoid something similar in the future, 12,000 B299 Flying fortresses were ordered which became the daylight strategic bombing campaign of World War II.

Naveen added that checklists and risk assessments are only effective if realistic control measures are put in place to mitigate the hazards that have been identified. Presenting the example of the container Vessel, Rio De La Plata, a life-threatening injury occurred to a crew member during unmooring operations, at Timaru Port, on 14 November 2020. In summary, the person in a supervisory role remains an observer and does not take part in the actual work or handling of the operation, which was one of the factors of this incident. Although there was a comprehensive Safety Management system onboard there was a lack of adherence.

It was a great mix of the Commission’s objective, history, organisation structure and a few case studies. Naveen walked us through the investigation process and the various levers involved. TAIC is a group of Subject Matter Experts to investigate specific types of accidents and are knowledgeable in the area of expertise.

Something that caught everyone’s attention was when Naveen narrated the sequence of the bulk log carrier Funing, an accident investigation due to loss of manoeuvrability while leaving Port of Tauranga, on 6 July 2020.

As a Safety investigation body, TAIC, has a Systems based approach, the assumption here is that the statistical probability of humans making an error is 100%. In findings, it surfaced that there was a complete breakdown of the communication between the Master and Chief Engineer meaning that the bridge team were not fully aware of the problem with the main engine, nor its implications in respect of vessel manoeuvrability.

It was interesting to know that TAIC goes beyond just root-cause analysis to understand various underlying reasons leading to an accident. In this case, it was the company’s culture, the culture of empowerment, communication breakdown and information exchange between the departments
In closing,

Master of the Company, Captain Eric Good, thanked Naveen for such an informative presentation.

- Captain Raminder Anand

New Zealand Company of Master Mariners Incorporated