29.
Mr Pyrke, who will retire on February 28 after serving the Hong Kong Government for 27 years, pointed out that nearly all the casualties within his experience showed that one single factor never caused an accident.
"There are usually a sequence of events, any one of which, if absent, would probably have prevented the casualty happening," Mr Pyrke noted.
"This means that the company and operating crew must maintain a vigilance for daily voyages.
"This lack of mental alertness is, in my opinion, a safety risk that has not duly addressed as yet, although it may well fall under the general title of fatigue which is covered in the new International Code of Safety for High Speed Craft adopted by the International Maritime Organisation," he said.
He expected that such hurman facets were equally, if not more important, to safety operation than the design and manufacture of the craft and its equipment.
End Tuesday, February 21, 1995
207 Vietnamese migrants return home voluntarily
A group of 207 Vietnamese migrants today (Tuesday) returned to Vietnam under the Voluntary Repatriation Programme of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Comprising 79 men, 59 women, 44 boys and 25 girls, they were the 225th batch to go back under the programme.
The group brought to 360 the total number of Vietnamese migrants who had returned voluntarily this year, and to 44,554 the total number of returnees since the programme started in March 1989.
End/Tuesday, February 21, 1995
Page 30Page 31