Herald of Free Enterprise – Capsized and sank on 6 March 1987 due to taking on water just minutes after leaving the harbour at Zeebrugge in Belgium. MS Herald of Free Enterprise was a roll-on roll-off (RORO) ferry which capsized moments after leaving the Belgian port of Zeebrugge on the night of 6 March 1987,…
European Maritime safety Agency has issued the Annual Overview of Marine Casualties and Incidents. It consists in a high-level analysis of accidents reported by the EU Member States in European Marine Casualty Information Platform (EMCIP). During 2015 there were 115 reported fatalities, 976 persons injured, 36 ships lost and 125 investigations launched. With 3296 marine casualties…
On 19 November 2002, the single-hull Aframax tanker PRESTIGE broke in two and sank in waters of the North Atlantic off the northwest coast of Spain. It had been carrying a cargo of 77,000 metric tons of heavy fuel oil from Russia and Latvia to Singapore when it encountered heavy weather on 13 November. It…
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) issued the report of its investigation of the grounding of the container ship Maersk Garonne in Fremantle on 28 February 2015. The harbour pilot decided to delay the ship’s entrance into the harbour when he realised that the assist tugs had yet to arrive. The ship’s bridge resource management was not effectively implemented and…
The steamship Yarmouth Castle was built in 1927 and was christened Evangeline. At that time Evangeline and Yarmouth, her sister ship, operated on the Boston to Yarmouth, NS route of the Eastern Steamship Lines. Brief: The ship caught fire and sank on November 13, 1965 while en route from Miami, Florida to Nassau, Bahamas. Of the 376 passengers…
The sinking of the ferry vessel MS Estonia in the Baltic Sea is an accident that will haunt the maritime domain for long years and even beyond. Caused by myriad reasons, this Baltic Sea accident was an event so unprecedented that the extent of the damages caused, both to life and to property, is still…
This Senegalese government-owned ferry capsized off the coast of The Gambia on September 26, 2002, resulting in the deaths of at least 1,863 people. The sinking of the ferry Le Joola is thought to be the second-worst non-military maritime disaster in number of lives lost, after the Doña Paz. The ferry was reportedly loaded to…
