In the wake of the fires on their Triumph and Splendor ships, Carnival Cruise's CEO Gerry Cahill, on Wednesday, told attendees of the annual Cruise Shipping Miami conference that the company had started a comprehensive review of its entire fleet.
"We are now focused on the lessons that we can learn from the incident, and also what additional operational redundancies might be available," Cahill told an audience of more than a thousand representatives from cruise lines, shipbuilders and ports, according to USA Today.
The 102,000-ton Carnival Triumph suffered an engine room fire on Feb. 10 while sailing in the Gulf of Mexico. This left the vessel dead in the water. Though the crew quickly contained the fire, the blaze also caused the loss of power used to operate lights, air conditioning, elevators and toilets in passenger areas as well as kitchen equipment used to prepare hot meals.
Even though technicians were able to restore limited toilet service and other functions over time, passengers described miserable conditions on the vessel over the four days it took to tow the ship to Mobile, Ala.
The fleet-wide examination is fouced on four things including how the line's vessels handle the prevention, detection and suppression of fires, and the redundancies built into ship engine rooms, according to USA Today.
"In addition to Carnival Corp. staff, the company has brought in experts from shipyards, engine manufacturers, electrical machinery manufacturers and the classification societies that rate vessels," Cahill says, reported USA Today.
The newspaper also states that the teams are working on the project in four locations: Miami and Southampton, England, where Carnival has headquarter offices; Mobile, Ala., where the Carnival Triumph is undergoing repairs; and Trieste, Italy, home to the Fincantieri shipyard where many Carnival vessels are built.
The company review is in addition to investigations into the fire by the U.S. Coast Guard, National Transportation Safety Board and the Bahamian government, Cahill notes, according to USA Today.
Cahill was also adamant to make clear that the fire on the Triumph was from "a different source" than the fire on the Splendor in 2010.
"The fire on the Carnival Splendor was the result of a catastrophic failure of a diesel generator, whereas the fire on the Carnival Triumph was triggered by a fuel line leak," he said, reported USA Today.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
