the move around this new standard was driven in whole from a string of railway - involved disasters in the late 1980s , such as the crash of cross - channel ferry the herald of free enterprise in 1987 , the port platform piper ao disaster in 1988 , and the viscount bow river ferry collisions in 1989 . more than 400 individuals lost their lived in these five disasters , but no whole individual or organisation was brought to issue .
100 or more people lost their lives in a ferry sinking.