Maritime Lawyer Brian Beckcom Warns about Shady Tactics by Maritime, Insurance Companies

Posted on July 29th, 2010 by

Maritime companies and insurers can go to great lengths to deny claims after an accident or injury.  As a maritime attorney, I know that workers may not be aware of the extent to which these entities can go to in order to deny or delay a claim, or to pay out less than injuries deserve.

For instance, it’s not unheard of to have a maritime insurance company go digging into a person’s medical history after an accident to see if they can find something that they can use effectively.  I have come across insurance companies visiting hospitals and health facilities that the injured person had earlier been admitted into, just to dig up some dirt on his medical history.

So, if you’ve ever undergone treatment for addiction or drug use, you can be quite sure that your insurance company will sniff out that information, and use it against you when it comes to paying out your claim.  Maritime insurance companies may send their representatives with authorization to sift through medical records in hospitals in your hometown, or any of the places you may have lived.  Minute medical details could be used against you.

The number one piece of advice I would give maritime workers to prevent something like this from happening, is to be absolutely clear upfront about your medical history at the time of employment.

Image Courtesy: Flickr – Vvillamon



Coast Guard Releases Audiotapes from Delaware River Duck Boat-Barge Accident

Posted on July 28th, 2010 by

The US Coast Guard this week released audiotapes from radio traffic, recorded around the time that an amphibious “Ride the Ducks” tourist boat was struck by a barge on the Delaware River in Philadelphia.  The tapes give some indication about the kind of mayhem that surrounded the moment when a barge plowed through a stalled tourist boat.  The boat sank, and all passengers on the boat fell into the water.  Two Hungarian tourists were killed.

As you listen to the tapes, the first indication of trouble comes from one shocked vessel operator who sees the barge plowing into the boat.  That is followed by other vessel owners in the area, alerting the Coast Guard to the fact that the boat has sunk, and the passengers are struggling in the water.  The Coast Guard then alerts other vessels in the area that about 30 passengers from the boat in the water, and asks vessels to look out for them.  Soon, the Coast guard instructs the crewmembers of the tug that was towing the barge, to throw life jackets and life rings into the water to the passengers, who are now struggling to stay alive.

As a maritime lawyer, I find it worrying that other amphibious tourist boats that are operated by the Ride the Duck Company, will soon be on the water.  The company suspended operations after the accident.  One boat was sent out for testing this week.  However, the company hopes that soon all the other boats will be back on the water.  I believe it’s necessary that we wait for the Coast Guard and the National Transportation Safety Board to complete their investigations into this maritime accident before allowing more of these boats on the water.  There are several safety questions here that need answering, and until we have these answers, I don’t think we should be sending these tourist boats out there.

Image Courtesy: Flickr – CJ Schmit



Transocean Employees Now Focus of Oil Spill Investigation

Posted on July 28th, 2010 by

Employees of Transocean, who were on board the Deepwater Horizon-semisubmersible rig, have now become the focus of an investigation into the disaster. Two Transocean employees, chief engineer Stephen Bertone and chief engineer technician Mike Williams have been designated as parties of interest by a hearing panel consisting of the US Coast Guard and the Interior Department. With that, the number of Transocean workers who are likely to face charges in the accident, has increased to five.

If Transocean employees are found to have acted in a manner that contributed to the explosion, then they could face criminal charges. The fact that they could’ve possibly been following orders from the company, will likely not be a defense in this case. Other Transocean employees who have been named as parties of interest include rig installation manager James Harrell, Captain Kurt Kotcha and chief mechanic Douglas Brown. No one from BP has been named as a party of interest yet.
The Coast Guard and Interior Department hearings into the Deepwater Horizon explosion, are continuing. So far, it seems that the panel, which consists of six members, is divided about which part of the rig operations to focus their investigation on. The Coast Guard seems more focused on marine safety, while the Interior Department seems to be looking at the design of the well and the kind of drilling practices that were followed. Soon, the investigators will look at BPs role in the explosion, including how the company directed Transocean to implement the drilling program.

Maritime lawyer Brian Beckcom is a Board-Certified Trial Lawyer whose primary focus is the representation of Jones Act seamen, including tankermen,  galley hands, deckhands, cruise line crews, fishing vessel crew members, offshore workers and other maritime workers in accidents in Texas, across the country and international waters.

Image Courtesy: Flickr -uscglantareapa




No Injuries in Shrimp Boat Fire in Galveston

Posted on July 26th, 2010 by


Photo credit: click from morguefile.com

Three people on a shrimp boat escaped serious injuries during a fire in  the Galveston Bay. The accident occurred about 3 miles northeast of  Seabrook. There’s no information  yet on what caused the fire. Fortunately, crewmembers of another boat, the Kemah Boardwalk Beast were able to rescue the crew members of the shrimp boat. The boat was severely damaged and sank. There were no injuries in this fire.

A maritime fire can be an extremely dangerous situation for crewmembers. There are various challenges involved in dealing with a fire on a boat. For instance, you can’t use too much water to douse the fire, because you then run the risk of drowning the vessel. Abandoning the vessel can be hard when you’re on the water. If you’re on the sea, rescue can take a much longer time to get you than if you are on land. These are just some of the reasons why a maritime fire rarely ends with good news as here.

Typically, these accidents are caused when inflammable materials on the vessel are ignited. A fire can be triggered when inflammable materials are stored in a place where there isn’t adequate ventilation. Gas cylinders and other flammable liquids and gases can easily ignite if they are not stored safely, or if proper handling precautions are not taken.

Besides, crew members must be trained to follow all safety precautions. Adequate training of crew members is a major factor in preventing fires on boats and other vessels. There must be well-established procedures in place for prevention of a fire, and evacuation in case an emergency. Unfortunately, as a maritime attorney, I often see that these procedures and Coast Guard fire safety regulations are ignored, especially by smaller maritime companies.



Fire on Board Louisiana Flotel Housing BP Cleanup Workers

Posted on July 25th, 2010 by

A small fire broke out on a flotel on Baptiste Collette Bayou in Plaquemines Parish in Louisiana.  The fire broke out in the mess of the flotel, and at least five workers suffered minor injuries.  Most of the injuries were related to smoke inhalation.  It’s not clear yet whether the workers who were injured, were employees of BP, or the contractors in the oil cleanup efforts.

Meanwhile, fishermen who had been brought in to help with cleanup efforts have been protesting their move into the flotels.  According to them, when they signed up for the job, the agreement clearly mentioned that they would be put up in motels.  However, BP has now been moving them into these cramped quarters.  These hotels can house up to 500 workers, and obviously, living conditions are cramped.  Each compartment can house up to 12 workers.  There’s only one bathroom for every four compartments.  There is little provision for recreation or entertainment.  Most of the men gather around a single TV.  One of the men puts it very well when he says that the entire experience is like being in prison.

Some of these fishermen have decided to strike to protest their new accommodations.  According to the agreement, the fishermen were supposed to work for 12-hour shifts.  However, when you are on a flotel, you’re there for 24 hours. The fishermen say that BP has not offered them any extra money to move to these flotels either.  In fact, many of the men have not been paid for their cleanup duties at all.

Maritime lawyer Brian Beckcom is a Board-Certified Trial Lawyer whose primary focus is the representation of Jones Act seamen, including tankermen,  galley hands, deckhands, cruise line crews, fishing vessel crew members, offshore workers and other maritime workers in accidents in Texas, across the country and international waters.

Image Courtesy: Flickr: Marinephotobank



Transocean Employee Says Alarm System Was Partially Disabled before Explosion

Posted on July 23rd, 2010 by

A fire and natural gas alarm on the Deepwater Horizon could have alerted workers to a natural gas leak, and could have helped them get out of their rooms before the first explosion hit.  However at the time of the explosion, the alarm was partially disabled.  According to an employee of Transocean, who gave testimony at a hearing in Louisiana this week, the alarm system was partially disabled, because the managers did not want workers being awakened from their sleep at 3 AM because of false alarms.

The employee Michael Williams, said that the alarm system was designed to detect a sudden increase in natural gas vapors.  If the alarm had been properly activated, it would have been able to warn workers in the rooms that handled heavy drilling fluid.  The workers would have been able to evacuate these rooms before the first explosion  occurred.  Instead, the alarm never sounded, and the workers in these rooms were not warned about the incoming tragedy.  When the explosion occurred, these are the workers who likely died first.

Williams was speaking before a hearing conducted by the US Coast Guard and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement.  Much damning testimony has come out from that hearing, and I have blogged about the hearings all this week.  What the hearing has done in part is to refocus attention back on Transocean, which has had some of the heat off it ever since the oil spill began.  In the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon explosion, much of the blame had been directed at Transocean, but that changed somewhat when the oil began to leak, and BP began to take the heat.  The fact is that there was more than one company involved in this disaster, and more than one firm that must be answerable for this tragedy.

Maritime lawyer Brian Beckcom is a Board-Certified Trial Lawyer whose primary focus is the representation of Jones Act seamen, including tankermen,  galley hands, deckhands, cruise line crews, fishing vessel crew members, offshore workers and other maritime workers in accidents in Texas, across the country and international waters.



Transocean Survey Reveals Workers Were Concerned about Safety

Posted on July 22nd, 2010 by

A survey commissioned by Transocean shows that its employees on the Deepwater Horizon were concerned about safety practices on the rig.  They were also concerned  about reprisals if they reported problems.

The results of the survey have been obtained by the New York Times.  The survey was conducted by divisions of Lloyd’s Register Group, on behalf of Transocean.

The workers were also concerned about equipment on the rig, some of which had not undergone maintenance in years.  Some of the workers voiced their concerns that drilling activities were being preferred over maintenance activities, with the result that many pieces of drilling equipment were unreliable or unsafe.

Another report also commissioned by Transocean, contains details about the lack of maintenance of the rig.  The blowout preventer components must be inspected every 3 to 5 years.  However, the Deepwater Horizon blowout preventer components had not been inspected since 2000.

Trust Transocean to come up an explanation for these results.  According to a representative of the company, the components of the rig that were found to be in poor condition, were minor.  The representative also commented on the workers’ concerns survey, saying that in its seven consecutive years, the semisubmersible rig had never had a lost-time incident, or any kind of major environmental event.

As a maritime lawyer, I have one question-How can the lack of accidents be taken to mean that everything is safe on a rig?  Does there have to be a fatal tragedy for a company to wake up to the fact there has to be maintenance of the rig?



BP Admits Photos on Website Were Doctored

Posted on July 22nd, 2010 by

BP is going on overdrive, trying to wreck its reputation as much as possible.  It’s hard for a maritime lawyer to imagine any more ways the company can further damage its reputation, or whatever is left of it.  Now, the company has been found to have doctored many of the photos of its oil spill monitoring efforts, posted on its website.

First, Americablog found that images posted on the company’s website of its Houston crisis room monitoring the oil spill, were in fact, doctored.  Some of the large screens in the crisis room that were blank in the original photo, had been doctored to make it seem like there were images on them.  Then, the same blog found another doctored photo, seemingly tweaked to show BP response officials busy with the spill monitoring efforts.

This week, a third doctored photo showed up on Gawker.com.  This one featured a shot taken inside a helicopter, supposedly a shot of a BP helicopter from inside the chopper.  That image was also doctored.  At the time the photo was supposedly taken, the helicopter was on the deck of a vessel.

So, why should these doctored photos matter at all?  It’s not as if any of these photographs indicate anything sinister.  If anything, the amateurish Photoshopping is laughable.  However, it’s important to look beyond the awkward images, and focus on the kind of deception that the company has a habit of engaging in.  We are in the middle of the biggest environmental disaster of our time, and BP still manages to find time to promote its image, or at least try to.  They hire a Photoshop “expert” to make the company look good, or at least better than it has in recent weeks, to the American public.

At a time like this, BP shouldn’t even be caring about its image.  It should be focused on compensating claimants along the Gulf Coast, many of who have not received their checks yet.  Instead, BP officials are hiring people to tweak images to make them look good.  It would be funny, if it wasn’t so tragic.



Further Damning Testimony: Deepwater Horizon Had History of Maintenance Problems

Posted on July 21st, 2010 by

Every day, maritime lawyers gain more and more evidence that the maintenance record on the Deepwater Horizon semisubmersible was atrocious.  According to the Los Angeles Times, in the days and weeks before the rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico killing 11 workers, there were several operational problems.  There were at least a couple of partial blackouts and a problem with freezing computers.  More appallingly, there was a long backlog of overdue maintenance, actually accumulating into thousands of hours of overdue checks.

Those facts came out at a federal hearing in Louisiana, conducted by the Coast Guard and a Department of Interior division.  In September last year, an audit showed the extent of the backlog – 390 jobs amounting to a total of 3525 man-hours.  When an employee of Transocean who was working on the Deepwater Horizon was asked at the hearing how many of these jobs had been completed, he was unable to answer.

However, he was able to inform the panel that before the Deepwater Horizon exploded, a computer system that was in place to monitor the big, had a history of freezing.  The rig had also been scheduled for a major overhaul in 2011, including work on its engines and thrusters.  According to the Transocean employee, he had asked for additional manpower on the rig in the past.

As a maritime attorney who has come up against Transocean in the past, none of this really shocks me.  However, as an American and a Gulf Coast resident, I’m appalled at the manner in which these companies have toyed with the lives of ordinary workers.



The Real Deal on Blowouts

Posted on July 21st, 2010 by

The Maritime Accident Casebook takes blowout data and puts it into some perspective.  According to the data, across the globe, there have been 44 significant blowouts since 1955 and before the Deepwater Horizon explosion.  These blowouts caused 79 deaths, and major loss of assets.

One event in 1929 caused massive marine pollution.  Between 1955 and 2010, the mean period between blowouts was 15 months.

Looking at the Gulf of Mexico specifically, between 1964 and 2001, there were 10 blowouts that resulted in 27 deaths.  One of those events, a blowout on the Sedco 135F resulted in a leak of up to 480,000 tons of oil.  Between 1964 and 2010, there were 11 blowouts, including the Deepwater Horizon explosion.  These resulted in an additional 11 deaths.  The pollution from the BP oil leak as of 4th July is estimated at between 300,000 and 572,000 tons of oil.

In the North Sea, there were two blowouts over a 55-year period.  One was in 1977 on a fixed rig, and the other was in 1988 on a semisubmersible.  Both of these blowouts resulted in a total of one fatality.

From this data it can be safely concluded that blowouts are not as rare as the oil companies have been making them out to be.

Maritime lawyer Brian Beckcom is a Board-Certified Trial Lawyer whose primary focus is the representation of Jones Act seamen, including tankermen,  galley hands, deckhands, cruise line crews, fishing vessel crew members, offshore workers and other maritime workers in accidents in Texas, across the country and international waters.



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