Whiddy Island Disaster

The Whiddy Island disaster, also known as the Betelgeuse incident, occurred on 8 January 1979, around 1:00 am, when the oil tanker Betelgeuse exploded in Bantry Bay, at the offshore jetty for the oil terminal at Whiddy Island, Ireland. The explosion was attributed to the failure of the ship's structure during an operation to discharge its cargo of oil. The tanker was owned by Total S.A., and the oil terminal was owned and operated by Gulf Oil.

The explosion and resulting fire claimed the lives of 50 people (42 French nationals, seven Irish nationals, and one British national). Only 27 bodies were recovered. A further fatality occurred during the salvage operation with the loss of a Dutch diver.

During the 1960s, developments in the pattern of oil transportation indicated that it would soon become most economical to move oil between the Middle East and Europe using ultra large crude carrier (ULCC) vessels. These vessels were so large that they would not be able to enter most of the older ports on the Atlantic Ocean, North Sea, and English Channel coasts.

Accordingly, building a new oil terminal in Europe capable of handling the largest vessels that were planned was judged appropriate. The intention was that oil coming from the Middle East would be off-loaded at this terminal and then stored for trans-shipment to European refineries using smaller vessels. The closure of the Suez Canal in 1967 as a result of the Six-Day War reinforced the economic viability of this scheme. Oil shipments had to come round the Cape of Good Hope, thus avoiding the vessel size constraints previously imposed by the canal.

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