Course of events During repair work on board a passenger vessel alongside, a subcontractor representative was found to have been squeezed to death by a watertight door. Extent of damage One person killed. Probable cause The probable cause of the accident was that the worker was caught by the door closing as he was passing through the doorway. Very often persons involved in such accidents have not allowed sufficient time to open the door fully before passing, making the door open just enough to pass through. If loosing the grip of the manual control at the door (at the entrance side), the door will reverse itself when in the "door closed" mode and start closing again immediately after the lever is released. (See extract from SOLAS Chapter II-1 Reg.15.8.1 below.) If then caught by the door, it may be very difficult to reach the manual door control again in time. Example of w.t.door, for illustration purposes. As the intention with these doors is to make the passageway in the bulkhead watertight, the closing force is more than sufficient to kill a person if squeezed in-between. See enclosed sketch of a door for illustration purposes. (The handle for opening the door can also be clearly seen.) Normal operation may be to keep the watertight doors closed when at sea, but the "master mode" switch on the bridge is not set to "doors closed" mode. Hence, it is possible that the crew develop routines or behaviours along the most frequent operational mode used for the watertight doors at sea or in port which they experience, e.g. the "local control" mode, where the door actually stops in the position when the operating lever is released. For ships constructed on or after 1 February 1992, the SOLAS Chapter II-1 Reg.15.8.1 applies as follows: The central operating console at the navigation bridge shall have a "master mode" switch with two modes of control: a "local control" mode which shall allow any door