SOLAS amendments were adopted by MSC that require ships to have plans and procedures to recover persons from the water. The plans and procedures should be considered as a part of the emergency preparedness plan required by paragraph 8 of part A of the International Safety Management (ISM) Code.

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The plans and procedures should include a risk assessment, recovery techniques which provide number of examples of how certain types of equipment can be used to recover persons from the water, conditions under which a recovery operation may be conducted without causing undue hazard to the ship and the ship's crew and drills for ensuring that crew are familiar with the plans, procedures and equipment for recovery of persons from the water.