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COPYRIGHT 2003 South Florida Sun-Sentinal
Byline: Jamie Malernee, Madeline Baro Diaz and Noaki Schwartz
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. _ As the death toll of Sunday's boiler explosion aboard the SS Norway rose to five Tuesday, investigators entered the engine room of the aging cruise ship docked in the Port of Miami, snapping photographs and diagramming the damage in hopes of determining what caused the deadly blast of steam.
Officials declined to release the name of the fifth crewmember to die in the accident, which also injured 20 employees, several of whom remain hospitalized with burns. Two of the survivors filed lawsuits against Star Cruises, the parent company of Norwegian Cruise Line, collectively asking for more than a billion dollars in damages. They allege the ship was improperly maintained and that its international crew was under-staffed, under-paid, under-trained, over-worked and encumbered by language problems.
"The SS Norway is an ancient, dangerous vessel with a long history of safety problems, which should have been sent to the scrap yard years ago," stated the lawsuit filed on behalf of seaman Abdi Comedia, who was scalded near the boilers. "The vessel SS Norway has a phony flag-of-convenience registration . . . the purpose of which is to avoid U.S. income taxes and to avoid more strict safety regulations which would be imposed if the vessel flew a U.S. flag."
The cruise line denies the accusations, and authorities are waiting for more facts before issuing an opinion.
Capt. Robert B. Ford, marine accident investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board, said it could take months for his agency to determine the cause of the explosion. He described the inside of the engine room Tuesday only as "a mess."...
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