An electrical technician on the Bermuda-flagged cruise ship Arvia was killed when a passenger lift started moving while he was inside the lift shaft. The UK Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) published its final report on the accident on 8 October 2026. It investigated on behalf of the Bermuda Ship Registry.
The accident happened at about 05:52 on 26 October 2025, about 75 nautical miles north-west of Cape Finisterre, Spain. Arvia was sailing from Southampton to Santa Cruz de Tenerife with 6,980 people on board. The ship diverted to A Coruña, where the technician's body was taken ashore.
What happened
One passenger lift had stopped working after the ship met force 12 weather on the voyage to Southampton. Over two night shifts, the electrical team repaired a damaged travelling cable and a blown fuse and tested the lift. Because the landing door release on deck 12 was faulty, the technician had reached the top of the lift car several times by climbing down the shaft ladder from deck 14.
After the repairs, the staff electro-technical officer and the technician ran a final test with the lift back in normal mode. At deck 11, the officer decided to look at the repaired cable bracket and held the lift doors open while the technician went upstairs. The technician opened the deck 14 landing doors with a release key and entered the shaft.
The officer then let go of the doors to walk up by the stairs. The counterweighted landing doors on deck 14 closed behind the technician, and the lift doors on deck 11 closed too. With both sets of doors shut, the safety circuit was restored. The lift answered a call that was still stored and moved up, crushing the technician between the car and the side of the shaft. The ship's doctor pronounced him dead at 06:07.
What went wrong
The lift worked as designed. The MAIB found the problems were in how the work was done:
The officer and the technician had different ideas of the task. The officer planned to look from the landing, while the technician appears to have believed he needed to go onto the car top. Nobody stopped to agree a plan, even when the deck 12 doors failed to open.
The lift was not under positive control. It was not in inspection mode and the emergency stop had not been pressed. The only barrier was the open doors, and those interlocks reset by themselves when the doors close.
The permit to work was signed hours before the work started and did not cover the unplanned inspection. No new job safety review was done when the job changed.
Training varied. The third electro-technical officer, who wrote the permit and supervised the lift work, had no formal lift safety training.
The report lists similar deaths in lift shafts on British Mallard and MSC Colombia in 2007 and on Carnival Ecstasy in 2015. Since the accident, Arvia's manager, Carnival UK, has told electrical teams across its fleet to reinforce the lift maintenance rules, including a ban on using the shaft ladder to reach the car top. It has updated its training material and now requires lift safety training within the last six months, plus a competence check, for anyone doing lift maintenance. The MAIB has recommended that Carnival UK review the use of self-resetting door interlocks as a safety barrier.
How to avoid it on your ship
Never enter a lift shaft or car top until the lift is under your control: inspection mode selected, emergency stop pressed, and a check that it will not move.
Do not trust open doors to keep a lift still. Door interlocks reset as soon as the doors close.
Agree the plan out loud before anyone leaves the car or the landing. If anything changes, such as a door that will not open, stop and talk again.
If the job grows beyond what the permit covers, stop and get a new permit and risk assessment.
If a landing door is faulty, move the lift to a deck with a working door instead of climbing the shaft ladder.
Only people trained on that lift type should work on it. If you have not been trained, say so before the job starts.
Cover photo: The cruise ship Arvia leaving Marseille, France, on 23 April 2023. Photo: Gérard/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Sources: MAIB: Fatal accident to a crew member on board the Bermuda registered passenger vessel Arvia (report 20/2026, 8 Oct 2026), MAIB investigation report 20/2026: Arvia (PDF), GOV.UK: Arvia report published (8 Oct 2026), Cruise Industry News: MAIB Releases Report on Fatal Arvia Lift Accident.
