Jennifer Homendy

Remarks and Call to Action on the Five-Year Anniversary of Small Passenger Vessel 'Conception' Tragedy

delivered 2 September 2024, MV Conception Memorial: Point Castillo, Santa Barbara, California

Remarks as Prepared for Delivery.pdf

[AUTHENTICITY CERTIFIED: Text version below transcribed directly from audio]

Thank you for joining us.

I’m Jennifer Homendy, and I’m Chair of the National Transportation Safety Board or NTSB.

Today is Labor Day. Many people are off of work; kids are out of school; families are getting together -- going to the beach, going to the pool; we saw many paddle boarding; going to barbecues, festivals.

Not these families.

Today is a day, just like every other day since September 2nd, 2019, that is marked with grief; tremendous, unimaginable pain every day, because today marks the 5th anniversary since the fire on board the small passenger vessel, the Conception, off the coast of Santa Cruz Island. That fire took the lives of 33 passengers and 1 crewmember.

The NTSB was on scene. I was the Board Member on scene -- I was not chair at the time. For the NTSB, this was the worst marine disaster that the NTSB has investigated since it was established in 1967 -- El Faro was the second -- the worst!

Now, a year later we issued a final report and in that final report we issued recommendations to the U.S. Coast Guard -- and many others. They have acted on some of our recommendations with respect to fire and smoke detectors, with respect to emergency egress -- with not having to have obstructions when you are trying to escape, though we've asked how are they enforcing these -- these standards. We have not received information on that, and I hope we will. 

Why we're here today is what the Coast Guard has not done, and what the NTSB has been demanding for over 20 years, and that is issuance of a regulation that requires owners of U.S.-flagged passenger vessels to implement a safety management system or SMS.

Now, what is SMS? It's not burdensome. It's common sense. In marine safety, SMS deals with compliance with existing regulations. It also establishes rules and procedures for safe operations. It delineates what crewmembers' responsibilities and duties are, training that must take place, what rules must take place, roving patrols that must be on duty, especially at night.

But this recommendation for SMS, like I said, isn't new. The NTSB first issued this recommendation following a passenger ferry accident in New York in 2003 that -- that killed 11 people, 11 passengers, and injured 70 others. We issued it again in 2012 after another passenger ferry accident injured 50 passengers.

After the 2003 tragedy, the Coast Guard said it didn't have authority to require U.S.-flagged vessels carrying passengers, including ferries, to... implement an SMS or Safety Management Systems [sic]. So Congress gave it to them. Congress gave the authority to the Coast Guard in 2010. Coast Guard set -- sent the NTSB a letter in 2013 and said, "We're working on a rule-making. And then they went silent.

That second ferry accident occurred. We called on them again -- implement SMS.

Then in 2018, again, when the Island Lady, a passenger vessel that transported people from land out to casinos, onboard vessels, went on fire. Fifteen passengers were injured; one died. We called on the Coast Guard to require SMS again. No action.

Then in 2019, the Conception, 34 people died.

We have issued this recommendation time and again, over two decades.

How many times does the NTSB have to issue this recommendation again before Coast Guard will take action?

How many deaths have to occur?

How many injuries have to occur?

How many families have to stand up here at a press conference grieving for their loved ones before action is taken?

And how many times does Congress, which did it again in 2021, tell the Coast Guard to take action. How many times do they have to do that?

Now, the Coast Guard in 2021 issued an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on this issue. What is that? They asked the community questions: What should be included in our rulemaking? We've heard nothing, nothing since of January 2021 -- only that "we're working on it."

Every once in awhile I hear the arguments of cost. This is the cost [gesturing to assembled audience members related to the vessel Conception victims]. This is the cost. Let me read to you the cost.

The cost is:¹

J.P. [Juha Pekka] Ahopelto.

Patricia Beitzinger.

Neal Baltz.

Marybeth Guiney.

Charlie McIlvain -- I'm sorry Mac-ul-vein [phonetically].

Kendra and Scott Chan.

Justin Dignam.

Lisa Fiedler.

Kristy Finstad.

Yuko Hatano.

The cost is:

Vaidehi Campbell Williams.

Adrian Dahood-Fritz.

Andrew Fritz.

Yulia Krashennaya and Dan Garcia.

Allie Kurtz.

Xiang Lin.

The cost is:

Sunil Sandhu.

Carrie McLaughlin.

Kristian Takvam.

The Salika family: Diana, Steve, and Tia. Tia was on the Conception celebrating her 17 -- 17th birthday with her friend Berenice Felipe, 16 years old.

The cost is:

Kaustubh Nirmal and Sanjeeri Satish Deopujari.

The Quitasol family:. Michael, Fernisa, Evan Michel, Angela, and Nicole.

Ted Strom.

And Wei Tan.

What if this was your family?

What if this your family?

People ask me all the time what keeps you up at night.

The next family -- the next family we have to tell, "[A] tragedy occurred and we're investigating."

The loss that occurred here on September 2nd, 2019 keeps them up at night.

Now, I had a -- I sent a letter to the Coast Guard on this a year ago. I released a letter today, or I'm going to after this press conference -- a letter to Secretary Mayorkas, from [sic] the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Coast Guard Commandant Linda Fagen.

I talked to Secretary Mayorkas on Thursday, asking, begging him to intervene and get the Coast Guard to take action.

I talked to the Deputy Commandant for Operations for the Coast Guard a few weeks ago.

I hope to talk to the Commandant. I've requested that.

I also talked to Congressman Carbajal from this district who's been a champion on this issue.

I hope, we hope this spurs action [be]cause this should never, ever happen again.

See also: All NTSB Docket (DCA19MM047) Items for the Conception Investigation

¹ Name spellings taken primarily from this source

Original Text Source: ntsb.gov

Original Image Source: NTSB.gov via KTLA.com

Text Note: The extemporaneously delivered remarks above deviate substantially from the written -- presumably as prepared for delivery -- manuscript. The latter is more artfully styled in diction and more well supplied in content. The as written remarks are transcoded and presented here for comparative purposes.

Page Updated: 11/18/24

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