Fire on Azamara Quest

By now I'm sure most of you have heard about the fire on the Azamara Quest cruise ship.  It happened on Friday March 30, after a stop in Manilla. While the fire was extinguished quickly, it knocked out the engines and power for 24 hours.  Luckily, the engineers on board managed to get minimal power back, allowing it to sail to port in Sandakan, Malaysia.  All passengers are safe though 5 crew were dealing with smoke inhalation issues, one reported as serious.  As I'm less than two weeks from departure on Azamara's other ship Journey, which happens to be identical to Quest, you can imagine I have been doing some reading to understand more about the incident as well as how the crew dealt with it.

The first thing to note, though it might seem obvious, is that a fire on a ship as sea is indeed a very dangerous situation.  It seems like it was extinguished within minutes which was absolutely crucial to avoiding it turning into a deadly event. While I'm not sure if it's true, I read that the one seriously injured crew member was trapped in the area with the fire due to the fire doors closing automatically when fire was detected.  Most unfortunate that a safety feature for the ship could have caused one individual to get injured.

The next thing to understand was how the crew dealt with the situation.  Unlike the ridiculous antics by the Costa Concordia crew, it seems like the Azamara crew performed perfectly.  People were asked to put on their life jackets and assemble at their muster stations whereby the captain kept everyone well informed of the situation.  And after 2 hours or so, they were told they could stand down and that they were out of danger.  Every report I read indicated that the crew were fantastic in dealing with the situation and kept the passengers calm.  I even saw some raw footage that clearly showed people calm, sitting down and listening for further directions, even some people were laughing.

Finally, how was the situation dealt with post fire.  The fact that the crew got the ship running again and able to return to port on its own power seems to have been an amazing feat.  There was 24 hours prior were there was no electricity but the crew ensured the passengers were as comfortable as possible despite no air conditioning.  Free drinks became the rule and while the kitchen had no power, BBQs on deck  kept people well fed.  Everyone was also given free internet access and free phone calls to relatives.  And when the ship did make it to shore, the first person to greet the passengers and apologize was the President and CEO of Azamara, Larry Pimentel.  And as I searched through news stories and videos, not one report could find any passenger with anything bad to say about the crew or the way the situation was handled.

You learn a lot about a company and its employees by how they deal with difficult situations.  I'm more confident than ever about the safety and standards aboard Azamara and still looking forward to those sea days.