Declaring Emergency: Important lessons for seafarers from air crash investigation

Have you been following the news about the disappearance of Malaysian Airline MH370? I am one among millions who agree that Airplane crashes are one of the most dreadful things to imagine. What amazes me more is how the airline industry responds to these accidents. They spend billions of dollars to learn a lesson from these accidents. I am afraid that isn't the case in the maritime industry. Let me narrate an incident. I happen to visit a ship a month after a major incident involving a spill of dangerous chemicals on a chemical tanker. Apart from many other factors, one of the reasons for this incident was heavily leaking manifold valves. Master, chief officer, and duty officer were sacked. When I visited this ship a few months later, I found, out of 42 manifold valves, around 35 still heavily leaking. The company had spent a lot of money in training their staff but failed to rectify the root cause. While I agree that the situation in the maritime industry is not as bad as the example above. But it is not as promising as the airline industry. So why not learn few lessons from air crash investigations, which may equally be applicable to the mariti...