Accidents

It has been over 34 years since the Doña Paz ferry collided with a tanker, burnt and sank in Philippines waters five days before Christmas, adding the darkest page in the country’s maritime history.

The fatal grounding of Costa Concordia cruise ship in the Mediterranean Sea, resulting in 32 deaths, 64 serious injuries, and a ship total loss. The casualty remains a classic example of how human error, lack of alertness and failure of compliance with procedures can lead to maritime disasters.

In 2002, the Greek-owned and Bahamas-operated tanker ‘Prestige’ encountered heavy weather during a routine voyage and eventually sank off the coast of Spain, causing the worst environmental disaster in the country and one of the greatest oil spills in Europe.

On October 27, the container ship Maersk Launceston collided with the Hellenic Navy minesweeper Kallisto off Piraeus. The minesweeper was damaged significanlty, while two crewmembers were injured. 

The sinking of the Amoco Cadiz in 1978 came to claim again the title of the world’s worst oil spill, putting another dark spot in the environmental record of shipping.

Sewol ferry sank on 16 April 2014, in South Korean waters taking the lives of over 300 people, most of whom where kids on a school excursion. Four years later, in August 2018, the official panel investigation on the accident said it could not find exact causes for South Korea’s deadliest maritime casualty since 1970.

More than 50 years after the supertanker ‘Torrey Canyon’ ran aground off England, spurring every drop of its crude oil cargo into the Atlantic, SAFETY4SEA attempts to analyze the world’s first major oil tanker disaster that put the meaning of environmental conservation in a new context.

The capsizing of Herald of Free Enterprise, only a few minutes after leaving Zeebrugge port on 6 March 1987, killed 193 people. The incident is considered, not only as the deadliest casualty involving a UK-registered ship since 1919, but also as a wake-up call for safety improvements.

On 12 December 1999, the Erika, a 25 year-old single-hull oil tanker, broke in two off France, polluting almost 400 km of French coastline and causing unprecedented damage to marine environment, claiming the title of one of the most major environmental disasters of recent years.

Over 30 years after the Piper Alpha oil platform suffered multiple explosions off Scotalnd taking lives of 167 people, SAFETY4SEA analyzes the North Sea disaster which made the oil and gas industry to look safety in new terms.