Khark 5
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The Khark 5 was an Iranian crude oil tanker that exploded on December 19, 1989 around 400 nautical miles north of the Canary Islands .
history
The accident
In December 1989 the tanker was on its way from the island of Charg in the Persian Gulf to its port of destination Europoort / Rotterdam with a load of around 250,000 tonnes of Iranian Heavy Crude crude oil . On December 19, the ship was in a bad weather area at position 34 ° 32 ′ N , 19 ° 34 ′ W about 185 nautical miles off the Moroccan northwest coast and about 400 nautical miles north of the Canary Islands when one or more explosions occurred on the ship occurred which, among other things , tore a 20 × 30 meter hole in the outer skin of the port side of the tanker. The tanker caught fire. The 32-person crew left the ship and were picked up by the Soviet ship Sarny . The burning tanker drifted in the direction of the Canary Islands by the ocean currents and kept losing a large amount of oil.
Triggered the explosion
The tanker belonged to the state-owned Iranian oil company and had an inert gas system. It was damaged three times during the Gulf War , at least once when it was attacked by an Exocet missile. Maintenance and conservation were minimized to the essentials during the war years. The shipping company later blamed a torn gangway on the deck of the ship as the triggering element for the first explosion. In all likelihood, this occurred in one of the ballast tanks on the port side, tore a 20 × 30 meter hole in the outer skin and destroyed part of the inner ship formations. A port double bottom ballast tank, the port ballast side tank and the surrounding associations were affected. According to Embiricos, an oil leak into the non-inerted ballast tanks caused by corrosion and cracking was the most likely cause of the explosion. According to CTX, the ship owner's explanation seemed less likely, since the torn gangway could hardly penetrate a three centimeter thick steel shell of the hull, but it could have provided an ignition spark for the combustible gas mixture that had escaped from the ballast tank.
The rescue journey
The Dutch salvage company Smit signed a Lloyd's Open Form (LOF) contract with the ship owner . The Dutch managed to extinguish the fire on December 22nd, but due to the bad weather and the heavy sea conditions with waves around three meters high, it took until January 1st, 1990, before the damaged vessel could be towed. The explosion hole on the port side was then temporarily repaired. Since both Morocco and Spain are forbidden to enter their territorial waters , the salvage company was unable to bring the tanker into the land-protected, calmer seas to lighten the 200,000 tons of oil still in the ship. So the tug with the tanker, from which oil continued to flow out, took a southerly course to the Portuguese island of Madeira in order to look for a way to pump the oil out of the severely damaged ship. During the tow trip, planes sprayed chemicals on the oil spill while a Spanish warship made sure the tug was no closer than 200 nautical miles to the Canary Islands. The Portuguese authorities also refused permission for the tug to enter the territorial waters around Madeira. After that, Senegal banned entry into its waters and the government of the Cape Verde Islands did not give permission to sail on their territorial waters.
After another major oil leak occurred on January 27 as a result of the burst oil pipeline, the salvage team finally managed to begin the oil transfer around 250 nautical miles west of Sierra Leone after almost a month and a half . The ship had lost around 70,000 tons of crude oil by this time. The Khark 5 was made afloat again after a successful oil transfer and drove to Greece for repairs on its own . The total mountain value was around 65 million guilders , the mountain wages paid out to around 18 million guilders. If the ship was brought in early at the end of December / beginning of January, the salvage company calculated that the sum would have amounted to just 10 million guilders.
consequences
The Khark 5 had about 250,000 tons loaded, of which about 70,000 tons spilled, much of it in the period shortly after the explosion. 14 planes and seven boats were busy applying solvents. The French government had a Cessna equipped with side-looking airborne radar (SLAR) and infrared sensors overfly some areas . Representatives of the ITOPF flew over the damaged vessel coming from London on December 21st and 24th. They only reported minor oil spills. From December 29, the ITOPF carried out overflights from Morocco and found that the oil spill was drifting southwest along the coast without reaching it. The oil slick moved up to about twelve nautical miles off the Moroccan coast in the first few days of January before it dissolved. It was assumed that around three quarters of the oil had evaporated and the rest was dissolved in the water.
Whereabouts
The ship was scrapped as Koohrang in September 2001 at Gadani Beach in Pakistan 25 ° 3 ′ 49 ″ N , 66 ° 42 ′ 41 ″ E
Map with all coordinates: