§ Mr. FlynnTo ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) how many similar exercises have taken place following the FEREX 86 ferry exercise; how many passengers were involved in each exercise and what proportion of them were able-bodied; how long it took for all passengers to reach the lifeboats in each exercise; and how long it took for each evacuation to be completed; [28707]
(2) how many passengers were evacuated in the ferry exercise FEREX 86; how many of these were able-bodied and how long it took (a) for all the passengers to reach the lifeboats and (b) for the evacuation to be completed. [28710]
§ Mr. NorrisThese are operational matters for the Coastguard Agency. I have asked the chief executive to write to the hon. Member.
Letter from C. J. Harris to Mr. Paul Flynn, dated 15 June 1995:
The Secretary of State for Transport has asked me to reply to your recent Parliamentary Questions as these deal with operational matters, for which I have responsibility as Chief Executive.PQ 2007/94/95 98 passengers were evacuated in the ferry exercise FEREX 86. All of the passengers were able-bodied.
The controlled evacuation, testing a variety of exercise scenarios, took two hours to disembark the 98 passengers as each lifeboat and helicopter carried out detailed tasks in slow time in order to allow careful evaluation of the problems associated with the evacuation.
Had the Master of "THE VIKING" been required to implement full evacuation procedures in a real emergency the evacuation could have been carried out in a shorter time.
622WPQ 2014/94/95 From records that are readily available the following ferry evacuation exercises have taken place since FEREX 86 (details of exercises from November 1992 were provided in reply to PQ 1811/94/95:
- FERREVAC
- SEALINK EXERCISE
- MANCHEX 88
- COMMON AIM 2
- SEAVAC
- MANCHEX 90
- LYONESSE 91
- MANCHEX 91
- CELTIC LIFT
- POLACAP
- SOLFIREX
Information on these exercises is not available in the form requested.