Levina 1
Encyclopedia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
n passenger ferry. On February 22, 2007, it caught fire, killing at least 51 people. Three days later, on February 25, it sank with a group of members of the media and investigators on board, killing at least one more and leaving three missing.
Background
The Levina 1 was a 2,000-ton vessel. It was 27 years old, and owned and operated by PT Praga Jaya Sentosa. It had been built in JapanJapan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. On the day of the accident, it was on a voyage from the Indonesian capital, Jakarta
Jakarta
Jakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Officially known as the Special Capital Territory of Jakarta, it is located on the northwest coast of Java, has an area of , and a population of 9,580,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political centre...
, en route to the island of Bangka
Bangka Island
Bangka is an island lying east of Sumatra, Indonesia. Population 626,955. Area: c.4,600 sq mi .There is an additional small island named Pulau Bangka in northern Sulawesi, Indonesia.-Geography:...
.
Fire
The vessel caught fire several hours after leaving port, prior to dawn, at a location 60 nautical miles (111.1 km) from the start port of Tanjung PriokTanjung Priok
Tanjung Priok is a subdistrict of North Jakarta, Jakarta, Indonesia. It hosts the western part of the city's main harbour, the Port of Tanjung Priok...
. Hundreds of passengers escaped the burning ship by jumping into the Java Sea
Java Sea
The Java Sea is a large shallow sea on the Sunda Shelf. It was formed as sea levels rose at the end of the last ice age. The Java Sea lies between the Indonesian islands of Borneo to the north, Java to the south; Sumatra to the west, and Sulawesi to the east...
. Over 290 people had to be rescued. At least 51 people were killed in the disaster, but the Indonesian Red Cross says the number could be as much as 89. The ships log claimed the ship was carrying 228 passengers, 42 trucks and eight cars, but the navy claims it had at least 350 passengers on board. It is common for logs of passengers to be left uncompleted and boats to be overloaded in Indonesia. It is generally reported that 300-330 people were on board. In reference to the incomplete manifest, Transport Minister Hatta Rajasa said "It is a big mistake that the ferry company never registered the identity of children passengers. It is a big, big mistake. I am going to give them heavy sanctions for that,".
Rescue effort
The ferry's sister ship, Levina II, rescued many passengers, as did the FilipinoPhilippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
ship Princess Vanessa. In total, two warship
Warship
A warship is a ship that is built and primarily intended for combat. Warships are usually built in a completely different way from merchant ships. As well as being armed, warships are designed to withstand damage and are usually faster and more maneuvrable than merchant ships...
s, three helicopter
Helicopter
A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by one or more engine-driven rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forwards, backwards, and laterally...
s, a tug boat and nine cargo ship
Cargo ship
A cargo ship or freighter is any sort of ship or vessel that carries cargo, goods, and materials from one port to another. Thousands of cargo carriers ply the world's seas and oceans each year; they handle the bulk of international trade...
s participated in the search and rescue
Search and rescue
Search and rescue is the search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger.The general field of search and rescue includes many specialty sub-fields, mostly based upon terrain considerations...
operation. The wounded were either transported straight to hospitals, or if necessary first treated at a makeshift centre set up at the port. 60 people were able to swim to a nearby island.
Sinking
After the fire had been extinguished, tugboatTugboat
A tugboat is a boat that maneuvers vessels by pushing or towing them. Tugs move vessels that either should not move themselves, such as ships in a crowded harbor or a narrow canal,or those that cannot move by themselves, such as barges, disabled ships, or oil platforms. Tugboats are powerful for...
TB Jayakarta III towed the ship into the waters of Tanjung Priok
Tanjung Priok
Tanjung Priok is a subdistrict of North Jakarta, Jakarta, Indonesia. It hosts the western part of the city's main harbour, the Port of Tanjung Priok...
on February 24. The following day, a party of four investigators and twelve journalists were taken to the ship by a police boat
Police boat
Police watercraft are boats or other vessels that are used by police agencies to patrol bodies of water. They are usually employed on major rivers, in enclosed harbors near cities or in places where a stronger presence than that offered by the Harbourmaster or Coast Guard is needed.Police boats...
. The reporters came from the Indosiar
Indosiar
Indosiar is a publicly owned national television station in Indonesia, and has been operating from West Jakarta since 1994. It was listed on the Indonesian Stock Exchange in 2004. Citibank Singapore has an 8.5 percent shareholding...
, Metro TV, ANTV
Antv
antv is an Indonesian television network based in South Jakarta. It is owned by PT Visi Media Asia,Tbk.-History:antv was launched on 1 March 1993 as a local television station in Lampung province. In the same month it was awarded a government license for nationwide broadcasting, and moved its...
, Lativi (later TvOne), RCTI
RCTI
RCTI is Indonesia's first privately owned television network and is based in West Jakarta. RCTI broadcasts Indonesian Idol as well as sinetron , films, news and current affairs, reality shows and religious programs...
and SCTV
SCTV (Indonesia)
Surya Citra Televisi is an Indonesian television station. Its headquarters are in South Jakarta. It began broadcasting on 24 August 1990 in Surabaya, East Java, broadcasting only to the city and surrounding area. At this point the programming was similar to that of RCTI and used some of their news...
TV stations and the Elshinta radio station. Many of those who boarded did not put on lifevests; although they had been available, the police had not made them mandatory. The ferry was still under tow at the time, being seven nautical miles (13 km) from the port itself. It was already listing slightly prior to the party boarding the wreck, and the group had been previously warned the ferry wasn't safe. The Indonesian investigative authority, the KNKT, had not given the group permission to board, but they saw other journalists on board, and followed suit. Once onboard the hulk, the journalists went to deck three where they interviewed the head of the city's Water Police, Adj. Sr. Comr. Frederik Kalembang. Shortly after the party boarded the vessel, it suddenly listed sharply. Police officers monitoring the vessel from a nearby boat used a loudspeaker to order an immediate evacuation of the ship. Most of those on board rushed down to deck two, where they escaped via a window at the end of the deck. The ship sank within five minutes. One six-man lifeboat
Lifeboat (shipboard)
A lifeboat is a small, rigid or inflatable watercraft carried for emergency evacuation in the event of a disaster aboard ship. In the military, a lifeboat may be referred to as a whaleboat, dinghy, or gig. The ship's tenders of cruise ships often double as lifeboats. Recreational sailors sometimes...
nearly capsized due to being heavily overloaded. One Lativi cameraman subsequently died in hospital, and three other people were left unaccounted for. The missing people are two police forensics
Forensics
Forensic science is the application of a broad spectrum of sciences to answer questions of interest to a legal system. This may be in relation to a crime or a civil action...
officers and a SCTV cameraman. Four more people were seriously injured. Subsequent diving operations on the wreck failed to locate the bodies of the deceased.
Investigation
A full investigation was launched after the twin disasters by the National Transport Safety Committee and the Police Forensic Laboratory. So far, the investigation has established that the fire started in a truck on the car deck. It is believed to have been a chemical fire, as the ship's crew reported that when they attempted to douse the tarpaulin-covered truck with water the ferocity of the fire increased. The trucker's ticketing agency shows that one of the trucks was loaded with cases of premixed petroleumPetroleum
Petroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights and other liquid organic compounds, that are found in geologic formations beneath the Earth's surface. Petroleum is recovered mostly through oil drilling...
, a rare and expensive commodity in Indonesia. The ship's captain was interviewed as part of the investigative procedure. Preliminary reports suggest that negligence on the part of the operator contributed to the disaster. The investigation has also revealed that no inspection of the boat's documents was conducted prior to departure. The vessel's skipper, as well as four other crew members, were also the subject of a criminal investigation regarding possible negligence.
Aftermath
Setyo Rahardho, head of the National Transport Safety Commission, said that "Journalists will not be allowed to accompany investigators any more," in the aftermath of the disasters. Hatta Radjasa, Indonesian minister for transportation, personally ordered the Directorate of Sea Transportation to revoke the operator's license in response to the incorrect documentation. The directorate did so, and also suspended local harbourmasterHarbourmaster
A harbourmaster is an official responsible for enforcing the regulations of a particular harbour or port, in order to ensure the safety of navigation, the security of the harbour and the correct operation of the port facilities.-Responsibilities:Harbourmasters are normally responsible for issuing...
J. Karelantang over his responsibility regarding the misleading documents. The captain, Andi Kurniawan, and the first officer, Sunaryo, (who only goes by one name, a common practice in Indonesia) were arrested after the disaster on suspicion of contributing to the disaster via negligence
Negligence
Negligence is a failure to exercise the care that a reasonably prudent person would exercise in like circumstances. The area of tort law known as negligence involves harm caused by carelessness, not intentional harm.According to Jay M...
.
The International Maritime Organization
International Maritime Organization
The International Maritime Organization , formerly known as the Inter-Governmental Maritime Consultative Organization , was established in Geneva in 1948, and came into force ten years later, meeting for the first time in 1959...
(IMO) reiterated an offer made to Indonesia in late 2006 to assist with aiding ferry safety after the losses of Senopati Nusantara
MV Senopati Nusantara
The M/s Senopati Nusantara was an Indonesian ferry that sank in a storm on December 30, 2006. The Japanese-made ship was a scheduled passenger line from port of Kumai in Central Kalimantan to Tanjung Emas port in Semarang, East Java. About off Mandalika island, the ship sank during the violent...
and Tri Star 1 killed over 400 between them. This time Indonesia accepted and the IMO made a number of recommendations which resulted in the establishment of an action plan.