Ship missing in red sea, possible 1400+ on board

This is tragic and news is coming in thick and fast, an Egyptain ship carrying possible 1400+ people last night went missing of radar, The ship failed to turn up at docks today in egypt,

SKYNEWS




other news is that a life boat may have been spotted with 3 people on it,

Also rumours that bodys also seen in the water,

also BTS thread on this subject,

BTS www.belowtopsecret.com...


[edit on 3-2-2006 by asala]

reuters

CAIRO, Feb 3 (Reuters) - Coastal stations have lost contact with a ferry carrying some 1,310 mainly Egyptian passengers from the Saudi port of Jeddah to Safaga on Egypt's Red Sea coast, security sources said on Friday.

The ferry should have reached Safaga at 2 a.m. local (midnight GMT) but did not arrive, they said.

They named the ferry as the Al Salam 89, which has a gross tonnage of 6,650 tons and is owned by the Egyptian company el-Salam Maritime Transport. According to the company's Web site, the vessel can carry about 1,400 passengers

its thought to be a roll on roll off ferry, and a pretty old one at that,
So there could be an issue with the saftey,

They can only take a certain amount of water,



Eye witness's from helicopter say they have sen bodys in the water,
This has not been confirmed,


A women living in the area says that there was a 4 hour electric storm last night,

[edit on 3-2-2006 by asala]

Egypt maritime has announced that the Ship sank,

A plane has spotted a life boat carrying people

Terrible news.

I was on my way into work this morning when I heard it on the radio. Up until I logged on to ATS, I was under the impression it was a 'Cruise Ship' that went missing.

Local news (radio, anyways) has been reporting it was a Cruise ship.

Just goes to show, if you want all the details... come to ATS first.

only lifeboat spotted had 3 people in, 1300-1400 claimed to be on the ship, not many people survived it seems, been 17 hours since its sunk now.

Anyone know who these people are? Im thinking its mainly western tourists?

Hope they can save some more.

Anyone know who these people are? Im thinking its mainly western tourists?

From what i am hearing its mainly Egyptian workers on board,

UPDATE:


Ship sank 40 miles of the Egyptain of Hurghada

Contact was made shortly before the ship went down,


UK are diverting a UK warship HMS BULWARK to aid the operation,





[edit on 3-2-2006 by asala]

Update

14 bodys and 12 surviors pulled from the sea so far,

My thoughts are with the familys,


update on number on ship is thought to be 1450


Also the roll on roll of ship was built in the 1970's





[edit on 3-2-2006 by asala]

Originally posted by Grailkeeper
... I was under the impression it was a 'Cruise Ship' that went missing.

... Just goes to show, if you want all the details... come to ATS first.

Initial reports here were the same, cruise ship. Recents reports though are now clarifying it to be Al Salam Boccaccio 98, a roll on-roll off ferry.



As Asala has pointed out, this type of ferry is subject to problems with stability upon taking on even small amounts of water.

source
David Osler, of Lloyd's List:
"Once a small amount of water gets on board it can set up an uncontrollable rocking that causes rapid capsize," he said.

to ATS and Asala.

There have been disaters with roll-on/roll-off ferries before:

Herald of Free Enterprise

They can indeed be quite dangerous if any water gets on board..

[edit on 3/2/06 by stumason]

A ship should arrive 1 hour from now to the scene of the sunken ship,

4 Egyptain frigates searching the area at the moment,


The waters are also warm at this time of year so intern may be a little hope for some to survive,






[edit on 3-2-2006 by asala]

A women living in the area says that there was a 4 hour electric storm last night,

What’s an electrical storm? Do you mean a thunder storm?

Anyway, this ship must have went down fast if only two dozen people could escape.

Cnn is reporting that Egypt says there have been 100 survivors picked up.

These things happen quite often , at the marine college we were told of several cases like this.

The problem seems to be with the older RO-RO ferries or "car" ferries is that they have just one large hold, now a large hold of air might seem like a great idea for boyancy but there is a slight snag in the idea.

Now the "snag" is that if water gets in there, mainly from the RO RO's main doors , it fills the entire hold. Now as a little test of what happens fill a tray full of water and try to walk with it, that effectively is what the hold turns into and since water is rather heavy is large amounts this can upset the bouyancy of the boat.

The solution is to comparterise the hold so that only a limited amount of water can get through, but its expensive and somtimes cant be done. Thats why many older ferries just "roll" over , because the water inside just throws the boat over. Little to no warning and little to no chance.

In responce to Devils request via u2u

If it is water on the car deck that has caused it (the usual reason with older RoRo vessels). The problem is caused by what Naval Architects call the free surface effect. If you get water on the car deck, rolling of the ship will cause it to slosh from side to side. This has the effect of raising the apparent centre of gravity, thereby reducing the stability until the vessel capsizes. The thing to note is that the effect depends on only the density of the fluid, the second moment of inertia of the fluid and the displacement of the vessel. It does not depend on the volume of the area in which the water is sloshing. If anyone wants a full breakdown of this let me know and i will write one up (theres a bit of maths involved).

Naval architects have long known that things like this happen and desperatly try to avoid it. It would be possible to build an unsinkable ship, all that is needed is to put in so many watertight bulkheads that there is no room for cargo. This is completly inpractical. At the other extreme is a ship with no safety feature what-so ever. This is just plain stupid! The designers problem is to find a good design somewhere between the two extremes. Companies cant afford to spend an infinite amount of money on saving peoples lives, nor can they spend nothing whatsoever. So the big question becomes how much is a human life worth???? (if it is not infinite and it is not zero, it must be somewhere in between, i.e. a finite value!). The sorry truth of the matter is that lives in the third world are worth less than lives in the first world (from an economic point, dont start aguing metaphysics with me). This means what would be an unaceptable standard of safety (e.g. how many people are allowed on board or how many life vests are onboard etc, stuff the west takes for granted) in the EU for example does not apply, or be practical in places like bangladesh (i have picked the out as they have had a number of very high profile ferry sinkings in the last 10 years) or eygpt in this case.

Untill this changes, ferries will still continue to sink far more often in the third world than in the first.

I read the Egypt refused Isreal's help in the rescue operations...how stupid is that?

Egypt would perfer people drown or be eaten by sharks rathar than be rescued by a Jew....typical Arabs. If I was in the water, I would appreciate any help I could get.

I wonder who made this ferry and if the Egyptian sailors even bother to maintain it properly....I doubt it.

Maximu§

It is being reported that the reason for the sinking was that the crew used hoses to try at put out the fire on the car deck but didnt pump the hose water back overboard afterwards. Free surface effects coupled witht the bad weather then capsized the boat.

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