NEWS: Cruise Ship Sinks Off Egyptian Coast, 1415 On Board

The Egyptian passenger ship, "al Salam 89" has sunk off of the Red Sea coast of Egypt. The incident occurred forty miles from the port of Hurghada. The ship contained around 1,400 people, some of whom were returning from the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. Egyptian helicopters are currently searching for survivors. It is not clear as to what caused the sinking of the cruise ship, but harsh weather is the likely culprit.
Update:Egyptian officials report 100 surivors have been pulled out of the Red Sea, as of 9:16 am EST. It is also reported that a British war ship is on route to the site, it will arive in two days. It is also stated that most of the passengers were workers from Egypt trying to make a living in Saudi Arabia.



In my opinion this is a tragedy which could have been easily averted. More diligent inspections and higher safety standards could have saved many lives this morning. The ship was reportedly made sometime in the 1970's and had been in a collision prior to this.(This is not clear, the anchor women on CNN stated this on the first report this morning. She might have been confused about a previous incident involving a separate ship.)
Should the companies' owner be held liable? This is not the first time one of their ships sunk, resulting in a loss of life. I feel that he should be held liable, for not keeping higher standards.
The story is still developing. Check the links periodically for updates on the story.


Related News Links:
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today.re uters.com
www.guardian.co.uk



[edit on 3-2-2006 by Nerdling]

[edit on 3-2-2006 by Nerdling]

[edit on 3-2-2006 by ReginalBigsby]

[edit on 3-2-2006 by ReginalBigsby]

[edit on 3-2-2006 by John bull 1]

[edit on 3-2-2006 by Nerdling]

This should be put on alert...

its breaking news...about 1,500 are on board

The pirates are not messing around any more, it seems.

[edit on 3-2-2006 by SpittinCobra]

the whole things stinks..

no SOS message was sent out, it just disappeared...
the structure of the boat is fine, weather conditions and extra people wouldnt have effected it...

it doesnt make sense.

Skynews are covering this very well..

the experts are confused how it can "just sink"

Pretty standard for a RORO ship (roll on/roll off). Once the water gets into the main deck it creates an unstable amount of ballast that rolls with the waves. More water pours in and the ship begins to list and drag itself down and will sink quickly as more water pours in. It's possible the water short circuited the comm system.

The sea going RORO car ferry, with big external doors close to the waterline and a large vehicle deck with few internal bulkheads that are able to prevent large movements of flood water, has a reputation for being a high risk design. If any water enters the vehicle deck, it quickly accumulates on one side of the deck making the ship unstable and causing a capsize

Wiki

It happens VERY quickly. A RORO vessel with a leak can be gone in a matter of minutes.

Originally posted by ReginalBigsby
More diligent inspections and higher safety standards could have saved many lives this morning.

Wouldn't you say that it is a little early to make that determination, no one even knows what caused the sinking? :shk:

For all anyone knows someone may have intentionally sunk the ship, considering the fact it was said to be carrying Egyptian Muslims who were returning from a pilgrimage.

[edit on 2/3/2006 by shots]

Originally posted by Nerdling
Pretty standard for a RORO ship (roll on/roll off). Once the water gets into the main deck it creates an unstable amount of ballast that rolls with the waves. More water pours in and the ship begins to list and drag itself down and will sink quickly as more water pours in. It's possible the water short circuited the comm system.

Just like the Enterprise sinking?

but wouldnt they have time to send out an SOS message? thats what the expert was saying on Skynews. If it was just like the Enterprise, they would of been able to send a brief SOS out..

Unless that was a joke i did'nt get as usual, i'm lost on the pirate quote up there, as yet there have been no mention of pirates involved in this?

As for being suspicious, listening to the initial reports i can't see anything susicious about it.

The ship was well old, almost certainly near or over it's shell life. Apparently ships of that type can't have the modernisations made to them to make them safe. They are usualy castoffs from the western world.

The experts on the ship say it went down in very bad weather, and even a small amount of water taken onboard one of those roll on rolloff ships can make it unstable.

For a ship to go down that quick, so quick that it can't give a distress signal, well it could have easily hit something (either another boat or something underwater/rocks etc).

Thats just info from the news channels and the experts interviewed, so on that basis i can't see anything suspicious until they find anything different.

CX.

This has allready been coverd, and is not realy terror analysis material. This hould realy be in Other news. Here is the origanl thread.

It is realy sad that this has happend though.

Originally posted by picklewalsh
This hould realy be in Other news.

1500 people lives at risk are not "other news"

You would think that no matter what happen you would be able to at least put out a SOS. Even if it took one minute, 60 seconds.

Originally posted by Nerdling
Pretty standard for a RORO ship (roll on/roll off). Once the water gets into the main deck it creates an unstable amount of ballast that rolls with the waves. More water pours in and the ship begins to list and drag itself down and will sink quickly as more water pours in. It's possible the water short circuited the comm system.

Early reports are indicating that may not have been the case. The ship is said to have a capacity of 1400 so it would appear at this time it was not over loaded, or at least that is what they are reporting.

We will have to wait and see.

Depends really.

RORO/ROPAX ships go down like a stone once the water tight doors are breached. It's possible that in the darkness in the middle of a storm they simply didn't notice the listing until it went into a terminal dive/capsize.

Also, the water causes the vehicles in the hangar deck to hydroplane, they'd all float to the listing side and contribute even more weight to the ballast. Once this happens the ship can have mere seconds before it slides under.

It sank straight to the bottom, very quicikly according to reports...

it did past a safety test in Italy, June last year

Originally posted by shots

Originally posted by Nerdling
Pretty standard for a RORO ship (roll on/roll off). Once the water gets into the main deck it creates an unstable amount of ballast that rolls with the waves. More water pours in and the ship begins to list and drag itself down and will sink quickly as more water pours in. It's possible the water short circuited the comm system.

Early reports are indicating that may not have been the case. The ship is said to have a capacity of 1400 so it would appear at this time it was not over loaded, or at least that is what they are reporting.

We will have to wait and see.

The amount of passengers makes no real difference.

Originally posted by Nerdling

The amount of passengers makes no real difference.

Well to be honest I would not know because I am no expert on Ships. I was just reporting what early media reports from so called experts were saying.

Police are all over the place in Duba, eye witness said you think it was a terrorist incident. I think this has been the 3rd accident in 14 years or something.

This is a very sad accident

Faux news just reported that 15 bodies have been recovered, and 12 survivors have been recovered. They are also reporting that 4 egyption boats are on their way to the site. Also one life boat has been spoted carrying 3 people. Fox news also thinks that the incident is weather related.

Originally posted by shots

Originally posted by ReginalBigsby
More diligent inspections and higher safety standards could have saved many lives this morning.

Wouldn't you say that it is a little early to make that determination, no one even knows what caused the sinking? :shk:

For all anyone knows someone may have intentionally sunk the ship, considering the fact it was said to be carrying Egyptian Muslims who were returning from a pilgrimage.

[edit on 2/3/2006 by shots]

Yes I do agree, to an extent. It is my opinion that the safety standards are not nearly as high as they should be in many countries around the world. It wouldn't suprise me if inspections are forged all around the world for ships like this. I should have elaborated a little bit on my comment.

The new channels here in the states are not covering this as much as they should be. There has been very little info on the television.

This reminds me of the MS Estonia tragedy.

00:55 - The first in a series of events that leads to the sinking of the Estonia. Weak, poorly constructed attachments on the 50-ton bow door, or visor, snap under the weight of unusually powerful waves. Many passengers, including one crew member doing a routine inspection on the car deck, hear a metallic bang coming from the area of the bow door-which is meant to open while the ship is in port, allowing cars to drive on and off the ferry. No one, however, suspects the bow door has just broken. The seaman on the car deck reports the sound to the bridge and examines the inner part of the bow. He sees nothing out of the ordinary and doesn't hear the sound again. He assumes everything is fine...Continues balticsww.com

sanc'.

[edit on 3-2-2006 by sanctum]