Engineroom flooding; confined space entry

摘要

An IMCA member has reported an incident in which the engineroom of a sea-going vessel was flooded to a level of 2m above tank top (to just below the engineroom floor plating). Had the flooding incident lasted a few minutes longer, serious machinery damage could have been the result. The incident occurred during ballasting operations, when the configuration of pumping from and to ballast tanks was altered. During this process, the cover plate of the sea strainer was blown off. This resulted in seawater ingress into the engineroom.