the drive towards this proposed law was driven in part from a string of transport - involved incidents in the late 1980s , such as the sinking of cross - channel ferry the herald of free experiment in 1987 , the coal platform piper alpha disaster in 1988 , and the godiva oxford river boat collision in 1989 . more than 400 people lost their lives in these three disasters , but no more people or organisation was sent to accounting .
100 or more people lost their lives in a ferry sinking.