Enforcement: Ship’s Pilot Sentenced to 10 Months in Jail for Cosco Busan Accident/Oil Spill

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Captain John Cota was sentenced to 10 months in prison after his guilty plea to two misdemeanor charges of violating maritime pollution laws. Captain Cota is the first Ship’s Pilot to be sentenced to jail time as a result of new laws that were enacted after the Exxon Valdez accident.

Will jail time help prevent future accidents? Perhaps. Are there more effective ways to improve performance? Yes.

Many shipowners have effective performance improvement and root cause analysis programs. Programs designed to prevent major accidents, injuries, and environmental damage. If you would like to learn about advanced root cause analysis and how it can be applied to improve performance at your company, see:

https://www.taproot.com/solutions/rootcausetraining/