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IMCA safety flashes disseminate important information on incidents and potential hazards and the lessons learnt from them that can help prevent incidents occurring elsewhere in the industry.

Individual safety events are available individually online, tagged and searchable, while the traditional PDF collections are also available for download.

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All members are encouraged to contribute relevant safety-related information – please visit our Safety Flash Reporting page for details on the submission process.

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Nicholas Hough
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Two hand injuries

What happened A member reports two hand injuries. Incident 1 As a Pilot climbed the vessel’s access hatch to the under-deck passage, his backpack straps entangled with the hatch retaining […]

| Included in IMCA Safety Flash 29/23

Fire in the laundry room

What happened? A smoke detector was activated. A deck officer checked the origin of the alarm which was coming from an area close to the laundry room. A general fire […]

| Included in IMCA Safety Flash 24/23


Safety Flashes – a summary of 2022

This is a summary of the 29 IMCA Safety Flashes published during 2022. All the published safety events or incidents are available on the IMCA website as individual web pages […]

| Included in IMCA Safety Flash 01/23



Man overboard from anchor handler tug

What happened A sub-contracted anchor handling tug was performing grapnel run activities using a long chain as a grapnel. Whilst overboarding the chain, a crew member lost balance and fell […]

| Included in IMCA Safety Flash 17/22

Fire at sea – some timely reminders (Safety4Sea)

The online safety magazine https://safety4sea.com, which amongst other organisations, re-publishes IMCA safety flashes, has published an article entitled “Tackling fire onboard: Where we stand”. It is based on findings from […]

| Included in IMCA Safety Flash 15/22

What are audits for? Some eCMID findings

 eCMID is IMCA’s well-respected safety management system health-check for offshore vessels – an electronic version of the Common Marine Inspection Document.  The results here are from 769 eCMID inspections, conducted […]

| Included in IMCA Safety Flash 25/21


Tumble dryer fire: lint ignition

What happened? Accumulated lint trapped inside an industrial tumble dryer onboard a member’s vessel, overheated and ignited. Whilst working in the vessel laundry a steward smelt burning coming from one […]

| Included in IMCA Safety Flash 08/21

Smouldering fire in tumble dryer

What happened? A tumble dryer was in operation when the heat within the machine exceeded its safe operating level resulting in items of laundry inside the machine overheating and generating […]

| Included in IMCA Safety Flash 32/20

Auto-ignition of laundry items

What happened? Cloths used for general galley cleaning were removed from a tumble dryer, immediately folded and piled in a steel bucket. Three hours later they were stowed in a […]

| Included in IMCA Safety Flash 18/18


Near-miss: Laundry fire hazards

Two members have reported recent near misses which might have developed into fires in the laundry room. Incident 1 A member has reported a near miss which might have developed […]

| Included in IMCA Safety Flash 07/16

Fire: Spontaneous combustion of towels

Two members have reported incidents in which there were fires in the laundry arising from the spontaneous combustion of galley towels removed from the tumble dryer. Incident 1 The galley […]

| Included in IMCA Safety Flash 03/16

Slips, trips and falls – raising awareness

A number of our members have seen an increase in the number of slips, trips and falls reported from offshore vessels in the past twelve months. There is a clear […]

| Included in IMCA Safety Flash 17/14

Tumble dryer fire onboard a vessel

A member has reported an incident in which there was a small fire inside the drum of a tumble dryer on a vessel offshore. A burning smell was detected on […]

| Included in IMCA Safety Flash 16/09

Fire incidents

Fire is one of the greatest risks to vessels and everybody needs to be on constant guard to prevent fires. We have recently received the following reports of incidents involving […]

| Included in IMCA Safety Flash 07/03


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