Moby Prince disaster
Moby Prince at Bastia (August 1987)
|
|
| History | |
|---|---|
| Name: |
|
| Operator: |
|
| Port of registry: |
|
| Builder: | Cammell Laird, Birkenhead |
| Yard number: | 1331 |
| Launched: | 1967 |
| Out of service: | 1991 |
| Identification: | IMO number: 6808806 |
| Fate: | Destroyed by fire, 1991 |
| General characteristics (as built) | |
| Type: | Car / passenger ferry |
| Tonnage: | 6,682 GT |
| Length: | 131.02 m (429 ft 10 in) |
| Beam: | 20.48 m (67 ft 2 in) |
| Draught: | 5.10 m (16 ft 9 in) |
| Installed power: | 4 x MAN Augsburg Diesels |
| Propulsion: | |
| Speed: | 21 Knots |
| Capacity: | 1200 passengers |
The Moby Prince disaster was a major naval accident resulting in 140 deaths. It occurred in the late evening of Wednesday 10 April 1991, in the harbor of Livorno, Italy. It is the worst disaster in the Italian merchant navy since World War II. It is also considered one of the two worst environmental disasters in Italian history, along with the explosion and loss of the tanker Amoco Milford Haven on the following day in an unrelated accident near Voltri.
MV Moby Prince, a ferry owned by Navigazione Arcipelago Maddalenino (NAVARMA) Lines collided with the oil tanker Agip Abruzzo, sparking an extensive fire that ravaged the ship. The only survivor of the crew and passengers of the ferry was a young ship's boy, Alessio Bertrand from Naples. The other 140 on board were killed by the fire or toxic fumes.
On 28 May 1998 the ship's hull sunk while impounded in a dock in Livorno harbor; it was later refloated and sent to be scrapped in Turkey.
MV Moby Prince was an Italian ferry owned by Navarma Lines (today Moby Lines). She was built in 1967 by the English shipyard Cammell Laird of Birkenhead as Koningin Juliana for ferry operator Stoomvaart Maatschappij Zeeland of the Netherlands, it was used on the Harwich to Hook of Holland route until 1984.
At 22:03 on 10 April 1991 the Moby Prince left Livorno, heading to Olbia for a regular service, manned by a complement of 65 crew and 75 passengers. The ship was commanded by Ugo Chessa. While taking the usual dedicated route out of the harbor, the ferry's prow struck the Agip Abruzzo, which was standing at anchor, and sliced through its tank number 7. The tank was filled with 2,700 tons of Iranian light crude oil. At 22:25, the ferry's radio operator broadcast a Mayday from the portable VHF transmitter. He did not use the fixed radio set, since he was not at his post at the moment of the disaster, as was later confirmed by the location of his corpse.
...
Wikipedia