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8 hours ago

Engine debris on Portland cruise ship may have caused October 2023 fire, regulator says

Ocean Navigator cruise ship docked in Portland. Photo / Courtesy of National Transportation Safety Board A fire broke out in the engine room of the Ocean Navigator (shown here) in Portland on October 18, 2023.
By Renee Cordes

An October 2023 fire aboard a cruise ship docked in Portland may have been caused by debris in the engine, an investigation has found.

None of the 128 passengers onboard the Ocean Navigator were injured in the incident, which caused an estimated $2.4 million in damage to the vessel, the National Transportation Safety Board said in its report.  The Washington, D.C.-based organization is an independent government agency tasked with investigating civil transportation accidents.

The Ocean Navigator, built in 2004 in Jacksonville, Fla., and registered in the Bahamas, was operated by American Queen Voyages. After a two-year hiatus during the pandemic, the vessel returned to the seas in 2022, taking passengers on multi-day coastal cruises of Canada and the U.S.

The fire broke out on Oct. 18, 2023, when the 300-foot-long boat was moored at the Ocean Gateway Terminal on the city’s East End for a 10-night cruise that started in Montreal, Canada. 

One of the 82 crew members, a motorman, suffered burns on about 40% of his body and was admitted to a local hospital, according to the report.

While putting some of the blame for the engine debris on a lapse in maintenance, investigators commended the crew for quick action that helped prevent the fire from spreading and for alerting passengers quickly and safely evacuating them. 

Although passengers were allowed back aboard to collect their luggage and other belongings, they were taken to hotel rooms and the rest of the cruise was cancelled.

Reflecting on the lessons for other vessel crews, the report recommends that they familiarize themselves with and train frequently on machinery, fuel oil, lube oil and ventilation shutoff systems “to quickly act to contain and suppress engine room fires before they can spread to other spaces.”

Sarah Flink, executive director of CruiseMaine, said the event was tragic but extremely rare.

“Though an explosion of this kind is an extremely rare event, learning from this kind of incident is precisely why we have an NTSB,” she told Mainebiz. “We hope and believe other ship operators will take note of the lessons shared from this investigation." 

While the NTSB has not investigated other fires on vessels docked in Portland, it has investigated fires aboard two fishing vessels. One was moored at the Safe Harbor Marina Orrs Cove in Harpswell when a fire broke out in November 2023, while the other was  conducting fishing operations in the Gulf of Maine about 118 miles southeast of Portland in August 2024.
 

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