The Lamma Island Crash Accident

A lot has been said about this. But I hope the government doesn't say too much, or they're not going to get the few critical factors that lead to this.

- Hong Kong people rush too much. In this case, they were rushing over to watch fireworks. They are not the only ships to do this. When people are rushing, they forget about lots of things and get tunnel vision.

- From point 1, they were probably sailing too fast at the time, and not in great visibility, at night.

- The ship that hit in the front leads a very fast deceleration. Maybe captains should be trained how to crash ships safely? A small change in angle may have decreased the sudden deceleration. (Just as one learns to safely fall off a horse in horse-riding?)

- Probably a lot of casualties had head injuries. Protect your braincase so you are not knocked unconscious and brace.

- Ships should have quick release seat belts.

- HK mostly has collisions. If they solve this problem, there would be less accidents. (Eg. The Ukrainian tugboat collision in 2008.)

- There's very little time to put on any life jackets unless you're close to one. Locate yourself close to them and the exits so you don't get caught in the struggle. If there is no way you can get to them, just hug some distinctively colored objects and try to stick with other survivors.


- Travel by ship is very safe compared to by car in HK. And we were rushing up some hill to watch fireworks too.

Despite this tragedy, 2 people are feeling very lucky right now.

- The white-haired man we were hiking with in Aberdeen/Peak: HK Electric engineer who just retired. He left HK for the US that day.

- My Dad: His position was in Maritime Safety and Accident Investigations. A high-profile accident of this casualty rate would be a very big investigation indeed.

At least this accident lead to some happy people....