Marchioness/ Bowbelle Inquiries homepage

The Non-Statutory Inquiry Report has now been made available on this site

From the left hand menu, click on the NSI Report link

On 20th August 1989 the gravel dredger BOWBELLE collided with the pleasure vessel MARCHIONESS. As a result of the collision, 51 people lost their lives.

Following the completion of hearings for the Formal Investigation into the collision between the Marchioness/Bowbelle, a non-statutory inquiry into the identification of victims following major transport accidents begins on 30 November 2000.

Both inquiries were announced on 14 February 2000 by the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions, John Prescott.  

This Inquiry will be conducted in two parts:  

     Part 1 will deal with the identification procedures used in relation to the  MARCHIONESS/BOWBELLE disaster.

          Part 2 will deal with identification procedures used generally following any major    transport accident. 

The terms of reference for this inquiry can be found here.

To view the Inquiry Team's document setting out present day practices and possible recommendations for the future click here

This website has been set up to provide assistance and information on aspects relating to the work and procedures of the non-statutory inquiry.  If you are interested in finding out more about the Formal Investigation you can go to www.marchioness-bowbelle.org.uk

This link, http://www.mcga.gov.uk/c4mca/ds-ssb-fsa-dom-pax.html contains links to the results of the Formal Safety Assessment (FSA) of all aspects of domestic passenger ship safety, which the Department proposed to the MARCHIONESS/BOWBELLE Formal Investigation and which was endorsed by Lord Justice Clarke in recommendation 12 of his report.

It also contains, for each research project undertaken, MCA's synopsis of the consultants' report based on the Executive or Management Summary provided by the consultants, but including additional background and comments provided by MCA, and our response to each of the recommendations made in the report.

In the interests of transparency, the original consultants' summaries are also included.