By Olubunmi Adebayo
*We shall be discussing for our reflections today, a historic event that demonstrated gross leadership failure against a remarkable display of raw courage.*
*MTS Oceanos was a Greek-owned cruise ship that sank on the 4th of August 1991 off the Wild Coast of South Africa.*
*The ship was 153m long, with 550 passengers on board and a total of 250 crew members.*
*On the 3rd of August 1991, Oceanos left East London in South Africa for Durban, but ran into a very bad storm.*
*As the journey progressed, there was “muffled explosion” and a leak in the engine room sea chest. Water thereafter flooded the generator room, and the crew shut down the generators to avoid short-circuiting. The ship lost power and was left drifting.*
*Here is the leadership failure – there was no alarm raised, there was no preparation of the passengers for rescue, and many crew, including the Captain of the ship – Yiannis Avranas, were among the first to bolt away to safety, while hundreds of passengers (most of whom were elderly people) were still on board.*
*The Captain later claimed he left to arrange rescue, but that was greatly disputed against the background of what took place before he left. A Greek Board of Enquiry later found him and some of his key officers guilty of negligence.*
*There was something interesting about the incident however, because the control room of the ship was left unmanned by the scheduled crew, the ship’s team of entertainers stepped in.*
*The key character was Moss Hills – a British guitarist based in Zimbabwe. He used the radio phone to broadcast a Mayday message until a ship answered.*
*Other supportive people were Moss Hills’ wife – Tracy Hills; a magician meant to entertain the passengers – Julian Butler, and the cruise director – Lorraine Betts. They organized passengers, launched lifeboats, and helped South African Marines to land by helicopter.*
*They insisted during the rescue operations that women and children must go first.*
*The rescue itself was one of the biggest helicopter rescue operations at sea – there were 16 helicopters involved, 13 were from the South African Air Force Pumas Team.*
*After the escape by the ship’s leading crew members, the 585 people left on board were all rescued with no casualties recorded.*
*The last 12 passengers, including Moss, Tracy and Julian, were all rescued after they helped everyone else.*
*The ship stayed afloat for some hours before sinking later.*
*This incident has remained a topic of discussion over the years because we saw a clear case of leadership failure as against the display of raw courage and selfless determination – a case in which the captain abandoned the ship early, and untrained but determined entertainers and junior staff took charge and took over.*
*Scholars have come to refer to this incident as a case-study in crisis leadership.*
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©️ Olubunmi S Adebayo.
