NYCivic - The Captains Blundered, But So Did Their Bosses

The Captains Blundered,
But So Did Their Bosses
By Henry J. Stern
October 22, 2003

One week ago, a crowded Staten Island ferry, with no one at the controls, crashed at full speed into a concrete pier 500 feet from the ferry slip where it should have docked. Ten people were killed, forty injured, and hundreds shaken.

Until today, the two pilots who were supposed to be steering the vessel have avoided being questioned by the National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the tragedy with all deliberate speed. But this is not TWA Flight 800, where the cause of the disaster was a mystery; this case is self-evident: no one was steering the boat.

As often occurs, once an organization experiences an enormous failure, inquiries point out many deficiencies above and beyond the immediate cause of the accident. There have long been hints of corruption and incompetence in the management of the ferry. The politics of the ferry is exposed in an article in today's New York Observer by Jim Callaghan

A weakness in the piece is that Callaghan blames people indiscriminately. For example, on learning of the tragedy, Mayor Bloomberg immediately left the World Series game, helicoptered to Staten Island, and comforted victims and mourners. It was not wrong for him to attend a subsequent game. I also believe the city's competing newspapers are doing a good job in following up on the disaster. This story, as they say, has legs.

The few overstatements aside, the article is well worth reading as a collection of healthy dirt on the ferry's operation over the years. If more than half the story is true, and I believe it is, Callaghan presents a chilling indictment of the abdication by city authorities of their responsibilities, and the delegation, knowing or unknowing, of ferry appointments and management to patronage-hungry local politicians. It leads one to ask whether people who are tied to the political system can undo the damage this historic mismanagement has done to the city.

This is a good time to renew the suggestion that the privatization of the Staten Island ferry be considered. Why should deckhands be public employees, protected by civil service regulations and labor agreements, nearly impervious to discipline, and royally rewarded for their tasks? In Parks, we privatized our thirteen golf courses, and it was an enormous success in added revenues for the city, and substantially increased usage by golfers. Is socialism really the best system to operate a ferryboat?

The management issues were not helped by the assignment of the current director of ferries, a longtime bureaucrat at DOT who had not been particularly effective in a more important position that he previously held. The Staten Island ferry should not be treated as a pasture, to which less effective managers are sent to await retirement. The manager's supervisor, a deputy commissioner, has held that position in the last two administrations. Did he ever interest himself in what was happening on the boats, and if so, what did he do about it during the years of his tenure? Let's find out.

The negligent conduct on the ship may go beyond the captains. Although the failure to turn off the engines occurred near a buoy which was a considerable distance from the dock, none of the crew appears to have intervened effectively as the ship approached the concrete pier at full power.

Park Rule 16-J: Nobody Does It Once. It is highly unlikely that the 3 o'clock boat last Wednesday was the first time in ferry history that there was only one man in the pilothouse during a docking. It is more likely that, despite the rules, the captains accommodated each other, and hung out in other parts of the boat while not actually. steering. In the great city in which we live, and in many other places as well, there is the thick book of rules and regulations, and then there is the reality of what is usually done. Rule and reality can be very far apart.

I am particularly curious about the way a relatively young man, Captain Gansas, a 38-year-old performer in a rock and roll band, could acquire the senior position of Captain, a job one associates with old salts. How did he get the job in the first place? Did he take a competitive examination for Captain? Were there other applicants? Did others know the job was available? Who recommended him to DOT? On what basis was he selected? And by whom? (Capt. Gansas was suspended today by Commissioner Weinshall for failure to cooperate with the investigation. Why not dismiss him before he qualifies for a city pension?)

The inquiries should explore these issues. The immediate cause is apparent, but there are more important questions as to how these two men, who have eluded the inquiry, at least until today, get to be placed in charge of a ship which carried thousands of passengers, whose lives and safety were entrusted to their care.

There was once a naval tradition that the captain goes down with the ship. That is not necessary today; we have too much respect for life. But I have never heard of a captain of a large vessel acting like a hit and run driver, and fleeing the scene of a maritime accident. If Captain Smith indeed blacked out, as is claimed on his behalf because he is too ill to discuss the matter, he would have had scant reason to flee. This is not an EgyptAir situation, it is most unlikely that Smith deliberately steered into the dock. But there are other possibilities, he could have fallen asleep or become distracted in another way, not realizing what was happening to the ferry.

Is it not shocking to you that, after such a disaster, Captain Smith completely abandoned his responsibility to the passengers--the dead, the dying, the amputees, the injured, and the frightened--and ran from the scene like a thief? The Daily News headline aptly summed it up in rhyme, "10 Dead, He Fled." What rule of the sea was he following? Who is Smith anyway, who recommended him, who hired him and why? What was the real story the last time he smashed into the St. George dock?

We should be told, promptly, whether the NTSB will study the underlying causes of the disaster, including operations of the ferry. If that is not within the scope of their inquiry, a special prosecutor should be appointed, because otherwise the case would be under the Staten Island District Attorney, an able and highly-regarded person, leaving office December 31 with honor and part of the same political system which, it is alleged, manipulated the ferry system for its own enrichment.

For the sake of the dead, the injured and the living who rely on the ferry to get to work or school every day, let justice be done.