THE old year is finishing on a sombre and sadly familiar note. As this column was being written, ships of several countries - including Singapore naval vessels - were scouring the Java Sea for a missing airliner while in the Adriatic, a desperate rescue operation had just saved most passengers and crew from a ferry on fire.

The implications of the AirAsia disaster are for the air transport industry to grapple with but the Norman Atlantic incident should be of great concern to the shipping industry.

The fire on the ferry comes, of course, months after the horrific sinking of the South Korean Sewol with the loss of 304 lives, mainly school students.