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AUS-EC3-L4.3

Casualty below — fire, flooding, blackout, loss of propulsion

This lesson covers the four major engine room casualties — fire, flooding, blackout and loss of propulsion — setting out the priority actions for each and explaining why notifying the bridge is the critical first step before any engineering response begins.

Entry & progression

Four things go wrong in an engine room, and they go wrong fast. Fire, flooding, blackout and loss of propulsion. Everything you have learned in this course exists so that you can act in the first sixty seconds of one of them.

Engine room fire

The fire triangle

The engine room contains fuel under pressure, hot surfaces above the auto-ignition temperature of that fuel, and oxygen. A fuel line failure that sprays onto a hot exhaust is the classic marine engine room fire, and it develops with a speed people who have not seen it do not believe.

Engine room fire

  1. Raise the alarm and tell the bridge. First, always, before you fight anything.
  2. Attack it immediately if it is small and you can do so safely — the first extinguisher beats the fixed system every time.
  3. If it is not small: evacuate, and account for everybody. Nobody re-enters for equipment. Ever.
  4. Shut down the fuel — quick-closing valves, remote fuel shut-offs, tank valves.
  5. Stop machinery and ventilation, and close the flaps, dampers and openings. Starve it of air.
  6. Confirm the space is empty and sealed. Then release the fixed system, on the master's order, in accordance with the vessel's procedure.
  7. Do not open up. Boundary-cool the surrounding structure and leave it sealed. Re-entry re-introduces oxygen to a space full of hot fuel vapour.

WARNING — The head count is the release condition A fixed fire-extinguishing system is released into a space on the basis of one thing: that everybody is out. There is no acceptable degree of doubt. Count the people, by name, out loud, and know before you sail how many people could be in that space and how they get out of it. The drill you did not run is the head count you will not be able to complete.

Flooding

Find it, stop it, pump it — in that order, because pumping a hole you have not found is a race you lose. Most engine room flooding comes in through something you can reach: a failed hose on a raw water circuit, a shaft gland, a failed sea valve, a hull fitting. Isolate the sea suction. Get the bilge pump on it, and the emergency bilge suction if you have one. Tell the bridge immediately — flooding is a stability problem and it belongs to the master as much as to you.

Blackout

Covered in module three. The engineering response is emergency generator, find the cause, shed the load, restore onto a dead bus, essentials first. What matters in a casualty is the second half: tell the bridge before you start. A vessel that has lost steering and does not know it is a vessel that is about to hit something.

Loss of propulsion

Tell the bridge, and tell them your honest estimate of time to restore — including the estimate "I do not know yet". They are making decisions about anchoring, about drift, about tugs and about traffic, and they are making them on your number. A hopeful guess that turns out wrong is worse than an honest unknown.

The common thread

Every one of these four is a bridge problem before it is an engineering one. The instinct of a good engineer under pressure is to put their head down and fix it. Fight that instinct for the ten seconds it takes to pick up the phone, because the master cannot make a single correct decision about a vessel they believe is fine. Tell them first. Then fix it.

Practice questions

5 questions
recallcore

recall · core

The classic marine engine room fire is caused by: (a) An electrical fault in the switchboard (b) Spontaneous combustion of oily rags (c) Overheating of the main bearings (d) Pressurised fuel spraying onto a hot exhaust surface

recallcore

recall · core

Before a fixed fire-extinguishing system is released into the machinery space: (a) The main engine must be barred (b) Everybody must be accounted for, by name — there is no acceptable degree of doubt (c) The vessel must be stopped and anchored (d) The bilge must be pumped dry

recallcore

recall · core

After a fixed system has been released into a sealed machinery space, you should: (a) Open up after twenty minutes to check the fire is out (b) Restart ventilation to clear the agent (c) Keep it sealed and boundary-cool the surrounding structure (d) Re-enter with breathing apparatus to recover equipment

recallcore

recall · core

The correct order in responding to engine room flooding is: (a) Find it, stop it, pump it (b) Pump it, find it, stop it (c) Stop the engines, then pump (d) Abandon the space and seal it

recallcore

recall · core

The single thing that fire, flooding, blackout and loss of propulsion all have in common is: (a) They are all caused by poor maintenance (b) They can all be resolved by the engineer without assistance (c) They all require the fixed fire system (d) They are all a bridge problem before they are an engineering one — tell the master first

AI-drafted catalogue content pending SME review. Sea service and course requirements change; verify with AMSA before relying on this for a career decision.

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