the drive towards this new law was driven in whole from a string of transport - related fatalities in the late 1980s , such as the diving of cross - channel steamer the lord of free enterprise in 1987 , the water platforms piper gamma catastrophe in 1988 , and the marchioness surrey river boat sinking in 1989 . more than 400 persons gained their lives in these same disasters , but no one individuals or organised was drawn to report .
100 or more people lost their lives in a ferry sinking.