the drive towards this new law was motivated in section from a string of transport - involved emergencies in the late 1980s , such as the crash of cross - channel ferry the herald of free association in 1987 , the oil spill fin alpha disaster in 1988 , and the countess thames river canoe sinking in 1989 . more than 400 people lost their identities in these three disaster , but no known individual or organisation was brings to account .
100 or more people lost their lives in a ferry sinking.