On April 28th, 2021, there was a fire in the engine room of the boxship, PRESIDENT EISENHOWER. NTSB has determined that the cause of the fire was the faulty installation of an oil return tubing. This led to a spray of fuel oil in the engine room, which ignited on contact with an exposed cylinder exhaust component after a while.
The investigation report states that the second engineer installed a steel fuel oil return tube section for the main engine. A post-event examination revealed that one end of the newly installed tubing had come undone and caused an ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel oil spray in the engine room. This continued for 30 minutes, after which the contact of the vapor with one of the exposed exhaust components caused the initial ignition. After around one minute of the start of the fire, cardboard boxes and wooden crates, which were stored on the deck above the engine room and next to the auxiliary boiler caught on fire. The crew acted prudently in closing off all the exhaust outlets to the area and flooding it with CO2 after they realized that the fire had grown too much to douse it themselves with portable fire extinguishers. The area was then allowed to cool before opening any outlets to prevent reignition.
NTSB recommended that a Rapid oil leak detection system could have prevented this mishap. They also stated that Video analytic technologies that leverage the already installed CCTVs in this room to detect fuel spray could achieve the same results. NTSB lauded the crew’s efforts and stated that this was a testament to the effectiveness of providing the staff with proper scenario-based training.
