One Ship, Different Clocks: UTC, Alarm Delays & Marine Investigations

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

What does a timestamp really tell us after a machinery failure? Onboard a ship, local time, UTC and equipment clocks can describe the same moment differently—and an alarm may appear after the event that triggered it.

In this episode of OSSA LNG, we explore how marine engineers and accident investigators reconstruct a reliable timeline from machinery logs, alarm histories and recordings.

Starting with the decision to retire leap seconds, we examine the practical distinction between the time that organises life onboard and the time used to understand a technical failure.

Two documented investigations bring the subject into focus:

• Dali: how the US National Transportation Safety Board checked equipment time references and aligned shipboard and shore recordings using a shared recorded event.

• Viking Sky: how alarms identifying the reason for generator shutdowns were registered approximately eight seconds after the shutdown alarms, complicating interpretation of the sequence.

We also discuss local and UTC timestamps in Kongsberg K-Chief 600 documentation, configured alarm delays, and why the first alarm in a history does not necessarily identify the initiating fault.

For marine engineers, electro-technical officers, technical superintendents and LNG professionals, the central question is practical: which event was recorded, against which clock, and at what stage of the sequence?

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SOURCES AND FURTHER READING

• NTSB — Dali investigation, DCA24MM031: machinery examination records and VDR audio factual report.

• Norwegian Safety Investigation Authority — Marine Report 2024/05: Loss of propulsion and near grounding of Viking Sky.

https://nsia.no/Marine/Published-reports/2024-05

• BIPM — Resolution 5 of the 28th CGPM (2026): continuity of UTC.

https://www.bipm.org/en/cgpm-2026/resolution-5

• Kongsberg Maritime — K-Chief 600 Alarm and Monitoring System Operator Manual, document 338857/I, March 2014.

The investigation examples concern time correlation and alarm interpretation; neither is presented as an incident caused by a leap second. Equipment behaviour and available recording functions depend on the installed configuration and software version.

Educational discussion. For operational decisions, refer to the vessel’s approved procedures and applicable equipment documentation.

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