KNM "Orkla" Fire 2002
In November 2002, the Navy lost the minesweeper KNM "Orkla" which caught fire in the Harøyfjord in Møre og Romsdal. No one was injured in the fire, but the ship was completely destroyed. A fire on board the KNM Orkla was discovered just before 07:00 on November 19, 2002. The fire broke out in a propulsion system of KNM Orkla, which was a minesweeper built of sandwich composite material. The fire spread rapidly. The fire was first declared under control, but later flared up again. The vessel was located outside Ålesund, just north of Lepsøyrevet.
The fire started with a break in the shaft between one lifting fan and the lifting fan. The lifting fan should make an air pressure below the vessel and lift it on an airbag. The shaft break led to a leak of hydraulic oil, while the broken shaft bolted the hole into the space where the lifting fan is located.The hydraulic oil fired and ignited the insulation material in the lifting fan room. This led to a colossal fire on board, as the insulation material was highly flammable combined with the fan / airbag adding additional oxygen to the fire. Calculations in retrospect have shown that the temperature one to two minutes after the fire started has been up to about 1000 degrees.
The crew immediately started active fire extinguishing. The fire was very intense and within five minutes, the flames were 25-30 meters long. The majority of crew members were evacuated for the next 30 minutes. Seven crew members, including the captain, carried out fire fighting from the aft deck. At 10.09 the rest of the crew was evacuated because of the danger that the ammunition store would explode. The vessel was already significantly damaged in the middle of the hull. November 20th at 0826 the vessel roled over.
The Commander of the Seas of Warcraft, Arild Sandbekk, issued a commission of inquiry after the fire on November 20, 2002. The commissioner's head was Commissar Captain Truls Grasmo from the Joint Operational Headquarters in Stavanger. In addition, the Commission consisted of a representative from the Armed Forces Logistics Organization / Sjø, the military workers' organizations, a number of crews from the Coastal Shed, a doctor, a representative from Ålesund Politikammer and a representative in the field of security. On January 9, 2003, the report was handed to the Sea Commander and on January 15, the report was published.
The Commander of the Seas of Warcatcher, Arild Sandbekk, was completely behind the captain and his crew regarding the assessments and decisions taken during the incident. Sandbekk believed it was a proper decision by the captain to prioritize the personnel in front of the equipment when he ordered to leave the vessel. The fire on board the KNM Orkla shows the importance of drills and drills on board with regard to fire and accident. This has always been a priority for the Navy.
The expert group, led by Det Norske Veritas (DNV), believes the fire cause can be traced back to the design phase, where the fire risk associated with the construction of composite vessels was not adequately emphasized. Among other things, no fire-retardant paint or other measures were used in the décor. The ramp was completely unprotected to fire. The vessel also had no reinforcements in the hull that could prevent collapse, says chairman of the expert group, Magne Sigurdsen from DNV. The lifting fan room, where the fire on board "Orkla" was started, was also not considered a flammable room, and consequently no measures were taken that could have heightened fire safety here.
"We are largely in agreement with the conclusions of the expert group, but it is clear that in such a comprehensive case as this, there are nuance differences. This will be discussed further when we begin deliberations on June 25th. The report, however, is a very good foundation for the work we are going to carry on, "says FLO / Sjø chief, flag commander Finn Hugo Gustavsen. "We have learned that we need a more solid foundation before entering into similar contracts in the future. And we have been able to do this in terms of procurement of both new frigates and new MTBs, "said Geir Kilhus, Head of Technical Division in FLO / Sjø.
The fire on board the KNM Orkla caused the miner's total damage and lost NOK 350 million. The reason that the fire spread so quickly and gained such a dramatic outcome as it did was due to a combination of many different factors. The technical experts conclude that inadequate verification and inspection, both by design and during the construction phase, has led to the fact that initial errors in the design were not revealed. Neither was adequate testing of the firefighter system carried out prior to the delivery of the vessels.
When the crew of "Orkla" started the extinguishing work, water pressure disappeared after 30 seconds. The seawater pumps had both poor capacity and poor lifting capacity. Also after the mining forces in the Alta and Oxyx class were taken, more safety precautions occurred. Failure to report and record events and near accidents resulted in important signals not being captured, so the necessary improvements were not made. The maintenance of the lifting axle shaft system has also not been good enough, partly due to frequent replacement of crew on board. Conclusions made by the commission of inquiry, and verified by tests on other mining vessels of this type, have shown that the seawater pumps had poor capacity. This meant that the crew in reality did not have the opportunity to extinguish the fire with water and thus the boat was overturned shortly. This is now fixed. In addition, other remedies have been made for tens of millions of kroner on the eight remaining vessels of the same type as KNM Orkla. There is better monitoring on the shaft that broke and started the fire. The flammable noise-absorbing material has been removed. In addition, warning sensors and irrigation systems are installed in the fan room and other adjacent rooms. Based on experience and the huge smoke development that was under the fire, there are also installed flight masks throughout the vessel.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
