BALIWAG MARITIME ACADEMY
Km. 54 Cagayan Valley Road, San Rafael, Bulacan

Case Study Analysis:

http://www.donapaz.com/Article/Home.html

Prepared By: 1/c Henry P. Mayhay Jr. S3-MT

Submitted to:Mr. Leo C. Pepito Research Professor

Before the tragedy…

After the tragedy…

MV Doña Paz

Origin of the Vessel:
The MV Doña Paz was a Philippine-registered passenger ferry that sank after colliding with the MT Vector on December 20, 1987. With a possible death toll of 4,375 people, the collision resulted in the deadliest peacetime maritime disaster in history. Doña Paz was traveling from Leyte Island to Manila, the country's capital. Passenger ferries like the Doña Paz are widely used in the Philippines, an archipelago in Southeast Asia comprising over 7,000 islands. They are among the cheapest and most popular ways to travel.
The Doña Paz was built in 1963 by Onomichi Zosen of Onomichi, Hiroshima, Japan, and was originally named Himeyuri Maru. During the time it plied Japanese waters, it had a passenger capacity of 608 people. In 1975, it was sold to Sulpicio Lines, a Filipino operator of a fleet of passenger ferries. It was renamed by Sulpicio Lines as the Don Sulpicio, and later, the Doña Paz. One month before the accident, the vessel had undergone dry docking. At the time of its sinking, the Doña Paz was plying the route of :
Manila → Tacloban → Catbalogan → Manila → Catbalogan → Tacloban → Manila. History and Background:
The Doña Paz had an official passenger list of 1,493 with a crew of 59 on board. But later media investigations showed that the list did not include as many as 1,000 children below the age of four and many passengers who paid their fare after boarding. The ship was going at a steady pace. The passengers were settling in for the night. The Doña Paz was scheduled to arrive in Manila by morning.
On December 20, 1987, at 0630H, Philippine Standard Time, the Doña Paz left from Tacloban City, Leyte, for the Philippine capital of Manila, with a stopover at Catbalogan City, Samar. The vessel was due in Manila at 0400 the following day, and it was reported that it last made radio contact at around 2000. However, subsequent reports indicated that the Doña Paz had no radio. At around 2230H,Philippine Standard Time, the ferry was situated at Dumali Point, along the Tablas Strait, near Marinduque. A survivor later said that the weather at sea that night was clear, but the sea was choppy. While most of the passengers slept, the Doña Paz collided with M/T Vector, an oil tanker en route from Bataan to Masbate. The Vector was carrying 8,800 barrels of gasoline and other petroleum products owned by Caltex Philippines.
Upon the collision, the Vector's cargo ignited and caused a fire on the ship that spread onto the Doña Paz. Survivors recalled sensing the crash and an explosion, causing panic on the vessel. One of them, a passenger named Paquito Osabel, recounted that the flames spread rapidly throughout the ship, and that the sea all around the ship itself was on fire. Another survivor claimed that the lights onboard had gone out minutes after the collision, that there were no life vests to be found on the Doña Paz, and that all of the crewmen were running around in panic with the other passengers and none of the crew was giving any orders nor made any attempt to organize the passengers. It was later said that the life jacket lockers had been locked. The survivors were forced to jump off the ship and swim among charred bodies in flaming waters around the ship. The Doña Paz sank within two hours of the collision, while the Vector sank within four hours. Both ships sank in about 545 meters of water in the shark-infested Tablas Strait.
It reportedly took eight hours before Philippine maritime authorities learned of the accident, and another eight hours to organize search and rescue operations. Only 26 survivors were retrieved from the water. Twenty-four of them were passengers from the Doña Paz while the other two were crewmen from the Vector's 13-man crew. None of the crew of the Doña Paz survived. Most of the survivors sustained burns from jumping into the flaming waters.
According to the initial announcement made by Sulpicio Lines, the official passenger manifest of the Doña Paz recorded 1,493 passengers and 60 crew members aboard. According to Sulpicio Lines, the ferry was able to carry 1,424 passengers. A revised manifest released on December 23, 1987, showed 1,583 passengers and 58 crew members on the Doña Paz, with 675 persons boarding the ferry in Tacloban City, and 908 coming on board in Catbalogan City. However, an anonymous official of Sulpicio Lines told UPI that extra tickets were usually purchased illegally aboard the ship at a cheaper rate, and those passengers were not listed on the manifest. The same official added that holders of complimentary tickets and non-paying children below the age of four were likewise not listed on the manifest. Survivors claimed that it was possible that the Doña Paz may have carried as many as 3,000 to 4,000 passengers. They took as signs that the ferry was overcrowded with the fact that they saw passengers sleeping along corridors, on the boat decks, or on cots with three or four persons on them. Of the 21 bodies that had been recovered and identified as passengers on the ship five days after the accident, only one of the fatalities was listed on the official manifest. Of the 24 passengers who survived, only five were listed on the manifest.

Cause and Findings of the Accident:
All officers on board the Doña Paz were killed in the disaster, and the two from the Vector who survived had both been asleep at the time. This left the field entirely to lawyers from all sides to endlessly argue over what went wrong, how – and who was responsible. It was later found that, at the time of the collision, both ships had been moving slowly: the Doña Paz at 26 km per hour, and Vector at 8 km per hour. They were surrounded by 37 square km of wide open sea – plenty of time and space to avoid crashing into each other!
Experts also wondered why the two ships had not communicated with each other before the crash. It is internationally required that all ships carry VHF radio. The Vector was found to have an expired radio license and having difficulties in steering maneuverability. The radio license for the Doña Paz was a fake. Survivors told investigators that the crew of the Doña Paz was having a party on board minutes before it collided with the oil tanker while the ship's captain was watching a movie on his Betamax. Some reports suggested that the captain himself had been among the revelers. Nonetheless, subsequent inquiries revealed that the Vector was operating without a license, lookout or properly qualified master.
Being ordinary people, the passenger didn’t know details of maritime rank or procedure. It is likely that a mate or apprentice was steering the Doña Paz. Not a single crew member survived to tell their version of the incident. After a long and contentious inquiry, the investigators placed the blame on the Vector.
Independent analyses have identified multiple factors that contributed to this tragedy: lack of law enforcement arising from corruption and connivance; under-qualified and overworked crew; telecommunications failures; and inadequate search and rescue efforts in the event of accidents.
My Own Analysis: In my opinion, both vessels MT Vector and MV Doña Paz should be blamed on the tragedy. Both of them violated and disobeyed the Maritime Rules regarding to safety of navigation. Negligence is the number one cause of this tragedy. This would not be happened if the Captain of MV Doña Paz is always responsible and aware of his job. An apprentice mate should not be left alone inside the bridge during the time of his watch. It should always be associated by a qualified and prudent officer to teach him how to become a proper Look-out. Officers should not pass their responsibilities to cadets for their own sake. A vessel is very difficult to maneuver when it is fully loaded. At that time, MV Doña Paz was loaded by over 4000 passengers where inadvertently unregistered to the manifesto. This factor was the reason why this vessel failed to commence a proper action to keep clear of MT Vector in an ample time. Instead, they colliding each other because of the maneuvering difficulties of MV Doña Paz cause by overloading of passengers. Likewise, the MT Vector admitted that they also have difficulties in maneuvering their ship. In other source, one crew member survived said that they need two persons to steer the ship. Unfortunately, investigation showed that MT Vector was unmanned during that time and made a zigzagging movement before the collisions to MV Doña Paz. Both of the vessels did not use their safety equipment for communications. Under GMDSS Code, an officer should be licensed and knowledgeable in using maritime communications. All officers of MT Vector are not licensed and their certificate was not valid. In my analysis, the government under the maritime sector of the Philippines and their companies should be responsible to this tragedy. It is because of two reasons;
1.) They allowed the vessel to sail within above its maximum capacity of 1,500 passengers which is illegal.
2.) They allowed unlicensed and fake officers to board their vessels having a poor knowledge to the safety of navigation.

Recommendation: I recommend that government should strictly apply the proper rules regarding to the qualifications of all Filipino marine officers. They should give enough training to Filipino seafarers that can contribute to the development of safety measures onboard the ship. For Merchant Companies, they should be aware of illegal jobs that were happening to their respective scope of their business. Choose only seafarers that have enough training, qualified and licensed officers having knowledge to the safety of the ship.