23-04-2025
Cruise ship fire in Portland may have been caused by maintenance lapse, NTSB says
Apr. 22—A 2023 cruise ship fire that injured one person and caused more than $2 million in property damage when docked in Portland was caused by equipment failure that possibly resulted from a lapse in maintenance, federal officials say.
An explosion and fire in the Ocean Navigator's engine room forced about 200 passengers and crew members to evacuate and left one employee burned in October 2023, forcing operator American Queen Voyages — now known as Victory Cruise Lines — to cancel at least one planned voyage.
The explosion was likely caused by debris in the lubrication system of one of the two auxiliary diesel engines powering the ship's generators, "which caused catastrophic mechanical damage" the National Transportation Safety Board found found in a report dated April 2.
It's not clear where the debris came from, but the NTSB suggested that its presence in the oil stream could have stemmed from employees failing to adhere to the manufacturer-recommended maintenance schedule, which specifies when to change the oil and filters.
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The oil filters had been used for more than 3,300 hours — well over the recommended 1,000-hour benchmark for replacing them, the report said. The oil itself had been in the engine for more than 5,000 hours, five times the recommended limit.
The ship had four 2,000-horsepower Caterpillar diesel engines, two main engines for propulsion and two auxiliary engines for generating electricity. For months leading up to the fire, crew members had been loading significantly more lubricant oil into the failed auxiliary engine than the other engines, which should have indicated that something was wrong, the NTSB said.
"The need to add significantly more lube oil to replenish the consumed oil in the no. 2 auxiliary engine indicated that there was likely an issue within the no. 2 auxiliary engine — either the engine was burning lube oil or the lube oil purifier was removing a larger quantity of contaminated oil during the purification process," the board wrote.
But the report also noted crew members' quick work to contain the blaze.
"The crew's quick action to secure engine room ventilation and engine fuel sources prevented the spread of fire and ultimately resulted in the fire self-extinguishing," the NTSB said in the report.
The board recommended that crew members routinely train and practice dealing with machinery, fuel and oil systems and ventilation, and they should be careful to follow recommended maintenance schedules.
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