Oil Tanker Disasters

Since oil was first shipped across the seas there have been  disasters that befell the ships that transported it, taking a thick, black liquid across a stormy patch of water would be bad enough, especially during the two World Wars when torpedoes would cause devastation to these ships, but it was the modern day that saw the worst environmental disasters as these ships were being built bigger, and the threat of losing one of these to the rocks became more frequent. 

Today there are fewer tanker disasters, regulations now say that any tanker must have a double bottom in order to at least give the cargo a chance to be recovered if a ship comes to grief. But it hasn't always been that way. 

1967, 18 March - The supertanker Torrey Canyon grounds on Seven Stones Reef off the Scilly Isles after the captain decides to take a short cut in a journey starting the month before in Kuwait. The ship soon breaks up but all 119,000 tons of oil was released into the sea creating Britain's worst oil spill. The government realised that the slick was heading for the southern coastline and so decisions were made to bomb the wreck and burn off as much oil as possible. The bombings were a success and the images of the flaming wreck of the Torrey Canyon made headlines around the world. 

1978, 16 March - After her rudder jammed off the coast of France, the crew of the VLCC (Very Large Crude Carrier) Amoco Cadiz now found themselves needing to shut the engines down in order to quickly get repairs underway. But the strong winds and heavy seas grounded the ship on the coast of Brittany. Attempts to save the ship were beaten back and the ship was smashed on the rocks, being pulled off and thrown back on again, in just over a week the wrecked ship had released her entire cargo of 220,000 metric tonnes onto the beaches. Dig deep enough today and the black sand still bears the scar of the disaster. 

1989, 24 March - The VLCC Exxon Valdez was making her way through Prince William Sound in Alaska when she grounded on rocks following her departure just moments before. 37,000 tonnes of her cargo of crude was spilled but thankfully the ship was saved, as was most of her cargo still remaining on board. This was the worst oil spill in US history until 2010 when it was overtaken by the explosion that destroyed the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico. 

1992, 3rd December - The double-bottomed tanker Aegean Sea ran aground off the Spanish coast of
Galicia in bad weather. Normally the disaster would be bad enough with the spilling of the cargo, but before the day was over the ship had caught fire and a huge blaze lit up the coast for several days. 67,000 tons of oil was spilled but before the fire the salvage teams did manage to save 12,000 tons by pumping it out in time. The ship later broke up and her anchors are now a nearby monument. 

1993, 5th January - The Liberian registered Braer loses power in a storm and runs aground at Garths Ness in the Shetland Islands. For the next few days the ship slowly loses oil into the raging sea as salvage teams try to get the ship off the rocks. But in less than a week the ship breaks her back and spills the entire cargo of crude oil into the sea, devastating the coastline and causing the deaths of thousands of birds. Incredibly the stormy weather actually helps disperse the oil, but that which came ashore was bad enough. 

1996, 15th February - While heading to the Texaco berth in Milford Haven, the Sea Empress grounded after developing a steering issue. Although tugs managed to pull her off the rocks and steady the ship, thousands of tons of the 128,000 ton cargo of crude were already spilling into the sea. The next few days saw even more disaster as the ship was grounded again as bad weather prevented the ship from being moved, eventually the Sea Empress was towed into Milford Haven and the ship repaired. The pilot in charge of the ship was demoted after a two day inquiry found him guilty of incompetence. 73,000 tons of oil was leaked into the sea, becoming the third larges spill in Britain, the 12th largest in the world. 

1999, 12th December - The Erika was making her way through the Bay of Biscay when heavy weather caused the ship to break in two. The tanker sank and caused an oil spill over hundreds of miles of French coast. 

2000, 13 November - During a storm a tank on board the tanker Prestige burst off the Spanish coast releasing heavy fuel oil into the sea off Galicia. Despite efforts to contain the spill and save the ship, she sank on 19th November the little fuel oil remaining on board had to be pumped out of the wreck using deep sea ROV's at 4000 meters down. 

Thankfully today tanker disasters and major oil spills are not as common, new regulations, ship safety and clean-up operations have all been implemented to limit the damage should anything like this happen again. But accidents do happen and, as is clear with these few mentioned here, the weather plays a big part in causing these vessels to come to grief. Hopefully disasters on this scale are now a thing of the past. 

Mass Murder on the ferry Prins Carl

Many people will have heard of the terrorist attack on the liner City of Poros in 1988 which left nine people dead, but who has heard of the murders that took place on 16th May 1900 on board the Swedish ferry Prins Carl? This was a case that shocked Sweden at the time and led to a brutal execution. 

25 year old criminal Johan Filip Nordlund had just been released from prison following his conviction for theft, something he did not stop at even after multiple sentences for the same type of crimes over and over again. But this time he was going to do something off the scale - so he boarded the Prins Carl in the port of Arboga, bound for the capital Stockholm. 

The steam driven Prins Carl was small vessel; built in 1874 she was 114 feet long and was able to carry out short trips across the inland rivers and lakes for overnight passages between ports. On this night however, the crossing would not be a calm one, as the ship sailed around 2000 hours and headed down river on its journey east. 

At around midnight Nordlund began shutting doors around the vessel, armed with a revolver in each hand, a knife and a dagger in his belt, he began shooting at anybody he came across. Pulling out the knife he then proceeded to attack the captain, Olof Ronngren and one of the female passengers and a young boy, one of the crew being shot in the shoulder in the meantime. In the smoking room a group of men playing cards heard the commotion and tried to get out, finding the door locked from the outside they tried breaking out, eventually being successful - but Nordlund simply gunned them all down as they fled for their lives. The killer ran down to the engine room after he shouted down for full speed ahead, this aroused suspicion as the ferry was already doing that, the engineer barricaded himself in the engine room and thankfully escaped being shot. 

In just a few minutes the Prins Carl was a scene of carnage. Dead and injured lay around the decks, chaos as he smashed the place up as he went around looking for more victims. His aim was to rob the passengers and make away with the ships cash - something that he actually failed to do. By now another steamer was getting close and looked like it was going to investigate, so rather than carry out his robbery instead he single handedly launched one of the ships lifeboats and rowed away from the scene. He had left a total of five dead and eight injured and had only managed to steal a total of SEK 845

Escaping from the Prins Carl, Nordlund got a change of clothes from somewhere and that morning made plans to flee the area. As he waiting on the platform of a train station he was arrested by police following a tip off from a member of the public after news went out with a description of the wanted man. He confessed that he was about to commit further carnage on the train. 

Johan Nordlund did not even try to justify his crimes, nor did he plead insanity or try and avoid the inevitable sentence. On 10th December 1900 he was executed with an axe and later buried. For the Prins Carl, she went to several different owners and photographs of her in 1934 show a burned out hulk of a vessel on t

he stocks under repair. She was sold in 1936 and renamed Lars Simson, before being scrapped in 1939. 

Fire in Shirley Towers

In 2017 Britain was shocked by the images of the burning Grenfell Tower in London in which 72 people were killed, but the fires that have been taking over high rise apartments have been a problem for many years. One such fire occurred on 6^th April 2010 in the 15 storey Shirley Towers in Southampton.

That evening a lamp set the nearby curtains on fire within Flat No 72 on the 9^th floor and very soon a call was made to Hampshire Fire and Rescue at 2010 hours. In less than two minutes burning debris was falling from the window onto the ground below. Firefighters soon arrived on scene just four minutes after the call and rigged themselves up for an entry into the apartments to tackle the blaze, although there was instant confusion as to the layout of not only the flat but the entire building. Entering the flat it soon became apparent that the smoke was reducing visibility to almost zero.

In the meantime the temperatures inside where the firefighters were exceeded 1000 degrees Centigrade and at this point it was figured that the teams would have to withdraw. Four attempted to escape – two required hospital treatment for burns when they got back down, but two others were nowhere to be seen. James Shears and Alan Bannon had been overcome by intense heat and tangled up in a bunch of cables that had suddenly appeared from the ceiling when the fire had caused the trunking to melt.

Trapped in the burning flat, the two firefighters died at their post less than half an hour after the first call. The other teams work hard into the night to extinguish the raging inferno, with success by 2230 hours and now the casualties can be removed from the site.

The tragic deaths of two firefighters hit the service hard, they were popular and hardworking guys who were professional and experienced. To lose their life in a tower block fire was shocking especially when it was revealed that the block did not have sprinklers.

The legacy of the deaths of Shears and Bannon are that sprinklers were ordered to be fitted to several tower blocks and the wiring within these flats will now be encased in metal rather than plastic that can melt. For firefighting equipment, the anti-snagging strap allows things to fall onto the air bottle without hooking on and holding down the wearer.

But for Shirley Towers, the flat was later refurbished and today it looks like nothing had ever taken place. For the two firefighters who perished that night, their names are on the memorial outside Hampshire Fire and Rescue HQ, but the true legacy of these two people is that the memory of their bravery lives on. 

Yorkshire coast fishing boat losses

Bridlington is the lobster capital of Europe and has been home to a harbour of fishing vessels for as long as the town has existed, being this close to the North Sea it would be impossible for fish not to be involved in the town’s infrastructure. But with any industry, there are always accidents and fatalities, this town having had more than its fair share over the years. Here are several fishing vessel wrecks that have been from the town or involved Bridlington in some way, but bear in mind that with so many wrecks it would be impossible to document them all in such a short blog, for the victims of the North Sea run into the thousands. The Magdalene Ann for example (above) went down on 12th August 2013 following a collision. 

The coast is already littered with wrecks from years ago, the cliffs alone at Bempton, Flamborough and Speeton are the scene of many a tragedy. There are two memorials in Flamborough village, the first was a double tragedy in 1909 when the Two Brothers sank while trying to rescue the crew of the Gleaner, a total of seven people killed. History repeated itself on 7^th May 1984 with the Carol Sandra and the North Wind, again both vessels lost, seven crew killed. The memorials are testament to the bravery of the crews of these boats when a fellow fisherman is in trouble.

On the evening of 21^st May 1987 the stern trawler Anmara with a crew of three was reported as overdue from its home port of Scarborough. Bridlington lifeboat was launched to conduct a search along with Scarborough and Filey boat as well as the RAF and fishery protection vessel HMS Lindisfarne, but the boat was long gone. The following day a body and wreckage was found in Cayton Bay. There were no survivors, the victims now being mourned in the towns up the coast, a grave of one of them in Bridlington cemetery sporting an image of the lost trawler. 

On 25^th March 1993 the Heritage set sail with her two crew members,  skipper Tony Maplebeck and his 21 year old crewman Shaun Rowley, and fished with another boat named Katie Jane 12 miles off the coast of Scarborough. The Heritage had snagged her nets on the seabed and the crew decided to wait for the tides to turn before freeing them. But the Katie Jane returned soon after and the Heritage was gone. A search of the area by ships and helicopters found nothing but wreckage. The Heritage was later raised and towed into harbour.

The trawler Diana was involved in a collision off the coast on 6^th June 2003 with the cargo ship Santa Vitoria. The boat was damaged and taken in tow but later sank, the skipper John Collinson having a lucky escape.

But four years later Collinson was involved in a second mid-sea crash when his vessel Flourish was in collision with the cargo ship Nautica and the crew abandoned ship. Collinson was killed in the collision which caused Flourish to sink, the other crew members were taken on board Nautica where they were transferred to a lifeboat and taken back to Bridlington.

There was drama on Bridlington south beach on 9^th April 2013 when the Serene grounded. The crew were rescued but as the tide came in the vessel was completely submerged. I stood on the south beach myself as the vessel was slowly consumed by the incoming tide, wondering what was going through the mind of the people who owned her, sailed her and now had to salvage her. Would she be another one of the coast's many victims, or was there hope for her to once again be put to sea. Only time would tell. 

The East Yorkshire coast will continue to be the scene of shipwrecks, but thanks to modern technology there will be quicker rescues, less risk to life and the ability to navigate away from danger. For those who have made the ultimate sacrifice over the years, they are remembered by those who go out to sea today. The memorials are testament to that.

The Nimrod Disasters

Photo by Mike Freer - Touchdown-aviation

The Hawker Siddeley Nimrod maritime patrol aircraft first came on the scene during the Cold War in 1967 and would go on to have a successful career spanning 44 years before being retired to be replaced by the new Poseidon’s. But during that career a number of crashes blighted the excellent safety record of this workhorse of the skies.

A modified version of the De Havilland Comet, itself a plane with a chequered history, the aircraft suffered its first disaster on 17^th November 1980 when a multiple bird strike upon take off from RAF Kinloss caused the Nimrod XV256 to crash into a wooded area killing two pilots. The rest of the crew survived.

Four years later a flare ignited on board Nimrod XV257 and the crew landed the aircraft and successfully evacuated. Although there were no casualties the aircraft was written off.

It would be over a decade before the next crash and in this case two happened within months of each other. XW666 had taken off from RAF Kinloss on 16^th May 1995 for a routine test flight, on board were the crew of seven and everything seemed to be going well. But 35 minutes after take off the engine warning light signified that engine number 4 was on fire. While the crew were performing their normal operating procedures engine number 3 light illuminated. The crew realised that this was a precarious position and the decision was taken to attempt to land on the water. Incredibly they ditched the aircraft in a controlled manner and the seven crew were all rescued, the wreckage sinking into the Moray Firth. The aircraft was later recovered.

On 2 September 1995 the Nimrod XV239 was taking part in the Canadian International Air Show much to the delight of the thousands who had come to see the three-day event that is held in Toronto annually. The seven crew members prepared the aircraft and it took off from Pearson Airport for its allocated display slot, the weather being very good for the display and with cameras rolling the entire time. As the aircraft made its mid-air turns it suddenly dived into the waters of Lake Ontario to the horror of all those watching. All seven crew were killed. The crash was blamed on the aircraft stalling at low speed and gaps in training were identified for crews taking part in air shows.

2^nd September became a tragic anniversary for another reason 11 years later when XV230 carrying 14 crew members was taking part in a mid-air refuelling over Kandahar, Afghanistan. The aircraft was on a routine reconnaissance mission on Taliban insurgents and all seemed well on board until suddenly a fire erupted on board. The crew attempted to land the Nimrod but witnesses then saw the entire aircraft explode and the burning wreckage scatter over the land below. There were no survivors. An inquiry established that there had been previous issues of fuel leaks and others began to highlight the safety of such an old aircraft that by now had been serving for almost four decades.

So an aircraft with a career spanning so long had quite a fan following and was always a welcome sight at air shows, but it was the right thing to do to withdraw this aircraft from service. The loss of five aircraft in its lifetime shows that the crews were highly trained and despite the loss of life these crews were professional to the end. Today there are memorials to the loss of the aircraft over Afghanistan and the cockpit salvaged from the Moray Firth crash is today on display at the South Yorkshire Aircraft Museum in Doncaster. A bench at the National Memorial Arboretum pays tribute to all victims of the crashes.

Migrant Disasters - Shipwrecks, Lorries and cocklepickers

Over the last ten years or so there has been a noticeable increase in the deaths of migrants in mass casualty disasters caused by those at the head of the human trafficking treating people as if they were just expendable cargo. Thousands of people from places like China, Vietnam and Mexico have paid tens of thousands of pounds each to be smuggled into Britain and America in the belief that they will suddenly have an amazing life and be able to support their families back home.

What they do not realise is that the journey will be a huge risk to life and when they get to their destination they will be forced to work as either poorly paid labourers or in many cases be subject to slavery.

Great Britain alone has seen a number of these events. Only last year, on 24^th November 2021, 30 migrants from all over the world came together on a French beach to attempt the crossing of the English Channel in a flimsy dinghy. They didn’t get far as the boat deflated out at sea and only two survivors were found by the time rescuers arrived on scene.

On 23^rd October 2019 a lorry, which had just left a cross-channel ferry in Essex, pulled up for the driver to check on his human cargo. What he found was 39 dead bodies, all succumbed to hypoxia and overheating during the voyage.  The victims were all from Vietnam and the police investigation later convicted a number of people who were given long prison sentences.

This wasn’t the first time a lorry had been found like this. A Dutch lorry on 18^th June 2000 was selected for examination at Dover after it had made the trip from Zeebrugge. Customs officers found 60 people in the back of the lorry, but only two of those were alive. It was later determined that they had died from asphyxiation after being trapped in the container for over 18 hours in extreme heat. The gang involved in the disaster and the driver were all given long sentences. 

For the Chinese illegal immigrants who found themselves in Morecambe Bay on 5^th February 2004 they were the lucky ones, although they didn’t feel like it. After surviving the journey they were now nothing more than cheap labour for criminals who took advantage of them and their job now was to scour the beaches here picking cockles at low tide. But things turned to disaster when in the evening they found that the tide had cut them off and they were in danger of drowning. With broken English one call alerted the emergency services but 23 people were killed.

The 2006 film Ghosts was based on this disaster and is a powerful reminder that these people were not treated fairly, not paid a decent wage and were exploited and threatened by bullies, gangsters and killers. 

But this is just Great Britain, across the world there have been many incidents that have led to mass deaths of migrants: 

• 27 June 2022 – 53 migrants found dead in the back of a truck in Texas after crossing border from Mexico. 16 others survived. The driver was arrested and the case is ongoing.
• 
  24 March 2020 – A shipping container on a lorry in Mozambique contained 78 migrants, 64 of them were dead. Deaths were caused by asphyxiation.
• 27 August 2015 – Truck is found abandoned on an Austrian motorway and investigation found the bodies of 71 illegal immigrants who were from Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. Due to the high level of decomposition several were not able to be identified.  Several people involved in the deaths were later convicted and jailed.
• 9 April 2008 – 54 suffocate to death in a seafood container in Thailand after the driver fled. The container had a total of 121 people inside so this could have been so much worse if it had carried on the journey.

It is not just trucks that hold a large death toll though, for the journey starting at the home countries and ending at their destination is always mostly by truck, it is the part in between that holds the most risk – a crossing of the seas. The boats used in these crossings are sometimes flimsy dinghys, old fishing boats or whatever the smugglers can get hold of. Poor quality lifejackets are provided with the clueless migrants being told that it will be a short and simple journey.

What they face is hundreds of miles of terrifying seas, bad weather and the threat of capsize. But what they do not know is just how many of these boats never make it. In the last decade there have been hundreds of boats sink on the journey across from Africa to Europe across the Mediterranean. In April 2015 one unnamed fishing boat approached a cargo vessel and tried to cause a collision in the hope that the 700 people on board would be rescued and taken to Italy. But the boat capsized and sank with just 28 survivors. The wreck was later raised and a total of 675 people were confirmed to have died.

This was the worst of them, there have been so many more, thousands of innocent people, including new born babies, lost to the sea, their lack of knowledge about what is actually going on meaning that they unwillingly risk their lives in these ventures, not knowing that at the other end there is slave labour or arrest and deportation. Although there are rescue teams on standby, charities to help the survivors and police doing their hardest to investigate the criminals, it is a huge operation with a lot of money involved, and while ever these gangs are allowed to continue their evil trade these migrant disasters will keep happening all across the world.

Fire on the Sally Star

It was the early hours of 25^th August 1994 and the roll-on-roll-off car ferry Sally Star was making her way from Dunkirk to Ramsgate with 104 crew and 17 passengers on board on a routine Channel crossing that normally took just a matter of hours. The ferry was build in Helsinki, Finland, in 1981 and had undergone a number of owner and name changes before being taken over by Sally Line in 1988. At 450 feet long and 74 feet wide, she could carry over 1700 passengers and 105 crew along with a car deck full of vehicles – over 400! As with all RORO ferries, vehicles could access both bow and stern doors making this type of ferry easily accessible for a quick turnaround.

Not long after the ship sailed, a fire detection panel on the bridge indicated a fire in the main engine room. When engineers went to investigate, black smoke was seen pouring out of the spaces. The engine was shut down, but then different systems on board started to fail such as the navigation lighting and steering gear. At 0422 Hours the general alarm was sounded and a few minutes later Dover Coastguard was called, all this while onboard fire teams prepared to attempt to fight the fire with breathing apparatus. Within minutes the few passengers had assembled and the emergency services were on their way to the stricken ferry.

As the fire teams were beaten back, the ships halon system was discharged into the compartment, the decks now starting to heat up significantly. In less than an hour after the first call, Ramsgate lifeboat and the tug Anglian River had arrived on scene. Now an incredible scene was played out as the lifeboat took on 102 people via the tug, crowded onto the upper decks to escape the burning ship, the lifeboat slowly making its way back to dry land while helicopters landed fire crews to help with the fire fight.

With only 19 crew left on board, 20 fire fighters now assisted with the battle as the ship, now at anchor in the middle of the Channel. One crewman was injured and was evacuated off the ship while boundary cooling was taking place on the decks, the tug spraying the side of the ship to ensure the fire didn’t spread further. As the morning progressed, more fire teams and tugs arrived on scene. By 1112 Hours that morning, Dover Coastguard reported the fire as being extinguished.

This could well have turned into a major sea disaster if it wasn’t for the rescue operation running like clockwork and the modern survival equipment on board the ship preventing the fire spreading. The image of a crowded lifeboat entering port with the survivors was one that made the papers the following day as everybody cheered for those who took part in what was surely a miracle in the Channel. The dangers of the RORO ferry and the open car decks were not just concerning through its ability to spread a fire though, for just a month later Europe was hit by its worst ever ferry disaster when the Estonia sank in the Baltic, once again highlighting the problems these ships face when disaster strikes.

An investigation reported that the cause of the fire was leaking fuel vapour igniting on the hot surfaces. Within less than two months the Sally Star was back at sea fully repaired. Other than a small collision in 1997 and a slight grounding in 2008, she has since had a good record of successful voyages. She did, however, suffer a fire in the Channel in 1988 where she had to be towed to Ramsgate.  In 1997 she was sold again to a Scandinavian company, changed hands (and names) on numerous occasions and the ship still operates today as the Wasa Express ploughing the waves of the Mediterranean.