List of major marine accidents 1971–1980

This list of serious marine accidents 1971–1980 records ship accidents in shipping with fatalities or high material damage.

list

date	Surname	dead	Course of events
January 11, 1971	Texaco Caribbean	8th	The Panamanian tanker Texaco Caribbean and the Peruvian freighter Paracas collided in the Strait of Dover . The tanker exploded and broke in two. Eight sailors were killed in the accident.
January 12, 1971	Brandenburg	20th	The Hamburg freighter Brandenburg (2,695 GRT) sank in the Strait of Dover within a few minutes after it collided with the unmarked wreck of the Texaco Caribbean tanker, which exploded the day before and then sank . 20 crew members were killed in the sinking, eleven more were rescued.
April 24, 1971	Angoche affair	24	The Portuguese coaster Angoche did not arrive at the port of destination at the expected time and was found floating two days later. The crew and one passenger have been lost to this day.
19th August 1971	HAM 308	7th	In the early hours of August 19, 1971 collided hopper dredger HAM 308 in Jademündung with good visibility and calm weather for unknown reasons with the Norwegian tanker Polycastle , the partially laden with oil en route from Wilhelmshaven to Hamburg was. HAM 308 sank immediately, seven out of 30 people on board perished. The ship was salvaged, repaired and put back into service. It was so badly damaged on February 25, 1993 in Hong Kong by a sucked in 500-pound bomb that it was declared a total loss and then scrapped.
August 28, 1971	Heleanna	> 25	The Greek ferry Heleanna burned down off Brindisi after failing to put out a fire that started in the kitchen around 5:00 a.m. The ship, which is approved for 620 people, was manned by over 1,100 people at the time of the accident, so that not enough life-saving equipment was available. Since the accident occurred near the coast, most of the passengers and crew were saved. 25 people died, another 16 remained missing.
November 9, 1971	Maori	28	On the voyage from Tahiti and Nouméa to Le Havre via the Panama Canal , the French freighter Maori, loaded with 9,400 tons, sank so suddenly in the sea area west of the Bay of Biscay, under circumstances that have not yet been clarified, that only a mutilated emergency call could be made. Despite an intensive search, only one of the 29 crew members was rescued. The rescued wore a survival suit.
Early February 1972	VA Fogg	35	On the voyage from Freeport (Texas) to Galveston (Texas) , the American chemical tanker VA Fogg , which was in ballast, probably sank as a result of an explosion while cleaning the cargo tanks. All 35 crew members were killed in the sinking.
February 15, 1972	Caesar	17th	In the port of Hamburg, abeam the Überseebrücke, the Caesar launch with over 40 people collided with a HADAG ferry and sank on the spot. 17 people were killed in the sinking.
May 11, 1972	Royston Grange	82	The British refrigerated ship Royston Grange (7,113 GRT) and the Liberian tanker Tien Chee collided about 35 nautical miles from Montevideo . A fire immediately broke out on the tanker and spread over the refrigerated ship in no time at all, the flames being additionally nourished by the freon gas escaping from the ship's open freezer containers. All 74 people on board the Royston Grange and eight crew members of the tanker perished in the inferno. A committee of inquiry later blamed the pilot of the tanker for the disaster: he had steered the ship on a course too far south and thus crossed the path of the reefer ship. The Royston Grange was the first British ship since World War II to be lost with everyone on board.
5th August 1972	Stade	11	In the English Channel off Cherbourg, the Hamburg coaster Stade was overrun by the Colombian freighter Ciudad de Manizales (12,000 GRT) because the bridge crew of the Colombian freighter, which had to give way, did not react. Eleven of the 13 crew members of the Stade were killed in the accident.
16th January 1973	Mont Laurier	6th	During a hurricane about 200 nautical miles northwest of the Azores island of Corvo on the French freighter Mont Laurier (4,249 GRT), the bulkhead between the hold and the engine room broke. A large part of the cargo, which was made up of highly flammable resins, fell into the engine room, caught fire and forced the crew to abandon the ship. In a 19-hour rescue operation, 16 crew members were rescued by approaching ships, six were killed.
March 1, 1973	Julius Pickenpack	5	A major fire broke out on the Hamburg trawler Julius Pickenpack (1,564 GRT) for an unexplained cause during repairs in a dock in the Canadian port city of Dartmouth, which killed five of the 52 crew members.
March 22, 1973	Norse Variant	29	On the voyage from Newport News (Virginia) to Glasgow , the Norwegian freighter Norse Variant, loaded with coal, sank in a heavy storm off the coast of New Jersey . Only one of the total of 30 crew members could be rescued after three days.
March 22, 1973	Anita	32	In the same storm as the Norse Variant , the Norwegian freighter Anita sank in the same sea area . All 32 crew members on board were killed in the sinking.
June 14, 1973	K-56	27	Collision of the Soviet submarine K-56 of the Echo II class with the Soviet reconnaissance ship Akademik Berg (Russian: Академика Берга) near Cape Verde in the Atlantic, killing 27 people on board from chlorine gas poisoning.
5th / 6th November 1973	Theodore AS	28	The ship was on a voyage from Narvik to Gijón with 21,139 tons of iron ore and probably sank on November 5 or 6, 1973 during bad weather with the entire 28-person crew in the North Sea.
17th November 1973	Cap San Antonio	6th	On the Hamburg freighter Cap San Antonio (10,000 GRT), a major fire broke out in stormy seas in the English Channel 12 nautical miles south of Hastings, which killed six crew members.
6th December 1973	Antje Jansen	7th	The Hamburg motor ship Antje Jansen (424 GRT) sank in the German Bight during a hurricane . The seven-man crew died in the sinking.
17th December 1973	Cape Sable	10	On the voyage from Antwerp to Algiers about 30 nautical miles off A Coruña, the Cypriot freighter Cape Sable sank so suddenly that only six of the 16 crew members were able to leave the ship, which was sinking over the bow. The cause was probably a slipped steel load.
19th December 1973	Oriental monarch	40	On the voyage from Portland to Japan, the freighter Oriental Monarch, registered in Liberia and loaded with wheat, sank about 500 nautical miles northwest of Vancouver . The ship had made a distress call after a hurricane flooded the engine room. Despite a large-scale rescue operation initiated immediately, all 40 crew members were killed in the accident.
January 28, 1974	Hedwig Lünstedt	8th	In the English Channel, the Lüher coaster Hedwig Lünstedt (424 GRT) capsized in a storm with a load of 1,000 t of sheet metal . Immediately before the sinking, the captain reported that he had to check the cargo. All eight crew members were killed in the sinking, which happened so suddenly that not even an emergency call could be made.
8/9 February 1974	Lance II	11	On the night of 8./9. In February 1974 the Norwegian trawler Lance II stranded off the coast of Finnmark (Norway) in a severe hurricane and broke up immediately afterwards. Only two crew members could be rescued, the other eleven were killed in the accident.
8/9 February 1974	Horse	36	On the night of 8./9. In February 1974 the British fishing factory ship Gaul, stationed in Hull , capsized and sank in a severe storm in the Barents Sea . The entire 36-man crew died. At first the ship was thought to be lost, but only three months later, in May 1974, was a life raft found, which at least partially confirmed the loss. It was not until 1997 that a British-Norwegian salvage company discovered the wreck off the northern Norwegian coast. The initially puzzling circumstances of the downfall gave z. T. wild speculation occasion.
July 14, 1974	Cavtat	?	The Yugoslavian freighter Cavtat sank not far from the Apulian coast near Otranto with 909 barrels containing highly toxic substances, especially lead tetraethyl , in the Adriatic. For years the possibility of this cargo being released as a dangerous environmental risk and its recovery as a technically very difficult problem was discussed in the media. In 1978 the barrels were finally salvaged by divers.
August 9, 1974	Metula		The Dutch tanker Metula ran aground in the Strait of Magellan . The ship lost 53,000 tons of crude oil drifting onto the shores of Tierra del Fuego . It is estimated that around 40,000 animals, mainly penguins and cormorants , died as a result .
August 30, 1974	Otwaschny	24	Shortly after leaving the port of Sevastopol , a fire broke out on the Soviet guided missile destroyer Otwaschny of the Kashin class , which led to a violent explosion. After another explosion, the destroyer sank. A total of 24 crew members were killed in the accident.
November 10, 1975	Edmund Fitzgerald	29	In a severe storm on the Upper Lake , the American cargo ship Edmund Fitzgerald sank under circumstances that have not yet been clarified with all 29 people on board.
November 22, 1975	Belknap	8th	During a maneuver off Sicily at night and during a storm, the American guided missile cruiser Belknap collided with the American aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy . The superstructure of the cruiser got under the projecting flight deck of the carrier and was badly damaged. The frictional heat also caused a fire on the cruiser, which destroyed the entire deck superstructure, as these consisted of an aluminum alloy, the magnesium content of which also fueled the fire. A total of eight sailors died in the accident, seven on board the cruiser and one on board the carrier. After this incident, the American Navy decided to have all deck superstructures built from fire-resistant steel again in the future.
December 30, 1975	Mountains Istra	30th	The Norwegian bulk carrier Berge Istra (227,550 GRT), which runs from Brazil to Japan and is loaded with oil and iron ore, sank in the Philippine Sea after a devastating explosion inside. Of the 32 people on board, 30 were killed. A search operation for the ship initiated on January 7, 1976 was initially unsuccessful. It was not until January 20, 1976 that two survivors were rescued by Japanese fishermen. Your statements later helped to reconstruct the disaster . Accordingly, the huge ship was torn apart by a huge explosion amidships and sank within a few minutes. An investigation later found that the accident was probably caused by an explosion in an oil tank. It is also interesting that the sister ship of the Istra Mountains , the large multi-purpose transporter Berge Vanga , was lost in 1979 in the South Atlantic under similarly mysterious conditions.
3rd January 1976	Capella	11	On the journey from England to Sweden in the hurricane in the sea area off Schiermonnikoog, the steering gear of the 840 series Rostock Kümos Capella (callsign DAVP) failed and water ingresses occurred. After provisional repairs, the ship's management, believing they could still reach Borkum, refused to allow the Dutch lifeboat Carlot to rescue the crew . In Hubertgat the ship got into extremely heavy bottom lakes with wind speeds of around 150 km / h , which led to its sinking. Rescue operations that were initiated immediately were severely hampered by falling darkness and extremely difficult weather. Nobody could be saved by the crew.
January 9, 1976	Maersk is different	27	A few days before the first test voyage, the steam boiler exploded on board the almost completed new container ship Anders Maersk in Hamburg, located at the equipment quay of a shipyard in Hamburg . 15 shipyard workers were fatally scalded by the escaping steam, and another twelve died of their injuries.
April 15, 1976	Ocean Express	13	In bad weather in the Gulf of Mexico , the Ocean Express oil rig overturned . The team was initially able to successfully save itself in two escape pods. One person was rescued by helicopter. The 14 occupants of one escape pod were picked up by the Nicole Martin in heavy seas . The second escape capsule failed to moor to the Gulf Viking and the capsule turned upside down. Seven of the inmates managed to escape outside and survived. The 13 remaining were killed in the half-flooded upside-down capsule. The US Coast Guard investigation report gives a long list of misconduct and suggestions for improvement for the entire towing operation, the weather forecast and also for the escape pods.
October 14, 1976	Fittleton	12	During a NATO maneuver off the Dutch coast, the British minesweeper Fittleton collided with the British frigate Meermaid and sank. Only five crew members were rescued despite immediate help, the other twelve were killed in the accident.
October 14, 1976	Bohlen	26th	Due to a navigation error, the ship got into the Chaussée de Sein, a cliff-rich area in the west of the French island of Île de Sein , and leaked. The ship's officers misjudged the situation after the grounding and set a course for the high seas, where there was a storm at the time. A distress report was only sent after more than 11 hours. At around 5 p.m. the tanker sank off the Crozon Peninsula . 24 crew members and two accompanying wives died in the sinking. After the sinking of the motor ship Capella on January 3, 1976, this was the second serious shipwreck of the Rostock-based DSR within a year.
October 15, 1976	Antje Oltmann	6th	West of Hoek van Holland, the Hamburg coaster (Kümo) Antje Oltmann (999 GRT) capsized after the maize load, which was poorly secured in view of the heavy weather, came over in a hurricane. The captain and two crew members were rescued, six were killed.
January 11, 1977	Burgenstein	4th	When the cargo was unloaded, there was a severe explosion on the freighter Burgenstein at Bremerhaven's Columbuskaje, followed by a major fire in which four crew members of the freighter were killed. The cause of the accident was sodium peroxide which had leaked from barrels and came into contact with moisture. Sodium cyanide also on board led to the triggering of a poison gas alarm for the entire port and urban area of Bremerhaven.
January 12, 1978	Anna Graebe	8th	On the voyage from Hamburg to London, the Hamburg motor ship Anna Graebe (486 GRT), loaded in bulk with 1,000 t of urea (urea), sank during a hurricane. All crew members were killed in the sinking. The cause of the accident was probably the overcoming of the cargo, which caused the slightly overloaded ship to capsize.
March 16, 1978	Amoco Cadiz		The tanker Amoco Cadiz had an accident off Brittany . The tanker, on the way to Rotterdam , was in very poor technical condition and was sailing under the Liberian flag. A gigantic oil spill contaminated the sea and the flora and fauna in the relevant stretch of coast.
12./13. December 1978	Munich	28	After days of hurricane, the Lighter Aboard Ship Munich made several SOS calls north of the Azores , which triggered one of the largest international rescue operations. The ship and its crew (28 people) remained missing, only rubble was found.
December 26, 1978	Omonia	6th	The British tanker Almak and the Cypriot freighter Omonia collided in the Strait of Messina . While the Almak was able to continue its voyage on its own, the Cypriot ship sank together with six crew members.
December 26, 1978	Tenorga	21st	During a storm, the Cypriot freighter Tenorga capsized in the port entrance of Porto, which is considered very dangerous in western storms . The ship's command had declined the urgent advice of the Portuguese authorities to call at the port of Vigo instead of Porto due to the weather. Only three of the 24 crew members survived the accident.
January 8, 1979	Betelgeuse	50	During the unloading of the French tanker Betelgeuse , there was a serious explosion during the unloading work at the unloading terminal on Whiddy Island in south-west Ireland, followed by a major fire in which the super tanker broke up and sank. 50 people, including all 42 crew members on the ship at the time of the explosion and all seven employees present at the unloading terminal, were killed in the accident. The investigation into the accident revealed serious deficiencies in the maintenance condition of the supertanker. The fire was triggered by steel plates rubbing against one another on the tanker's outer skin.
4th February 1979	Metrostroy	39	About 55 nautical miles east of Vardø , the Soviet trawler Metrostroy , which was returning from a fishing trip to the home port of Murmansk, sank during a snow storm . All 39 crew members were killed in the accident, two of them were later found frozen to death in a life raft.
July 19, 1979	Atlantic Empress and Aegean Captain	29	In the Atlantic, the oil tankers Atlantic Empress ( sailing under the Greek flag) and Aegean Captain (under the Liberian flag) collided off the island of Tobago . Of their total cargo of around 470,000 t of crude oil, around 287,000 t leaked and caused an oil spill . In the collision, which also started a fire, 29 seamen died.
August 11, 1979	Disaster at the Fastnet Race	19th	In the Celtic Sea , over 300 yachts got into distress at the Admiral's Cup . At least 75 yachts overturned and 24 sank. 15 sailors and 3 rescuers died.
October 31, 1979	Burmah Agate	32	On leaving the port of Galveston (Texas), the Greek freighter Mimosa (8,782 GRT ) collided with the incoming Liberian tanker Burmah Agate (32,285 GRT) due to a navigation error . Both ships immediately caught fire as a result of the collision. Only two crew members of the Burmah Agate could be rescued, the rest burned in the explosive outbreak of fire, so that the machines of the tanker continued to run for hours and the tanker drove in circles. A large part of the Liberian tanker's 60,000 tonne oil load flowed into the sea.
November 15, 1979	Independența	43	The Romanian supertanker Independența (164,000 GRT) and the Greek freighter Evriali collided off the Bosphorus . The almost 300 meter long tanker caught fire immediately and stranded near Haydarpaşa. 43 members of the tanker crew were killed in the inferno. Only three men survived and were able to save themselves on the bank. An estimated 90,000 tons of oil spilled into the ocean and wreaked havoc on the environment.
Late November 1979	Mountains Vanga	40	In the South Atlantic, on the way from Brazil to Japan , the Norwegian bulk transporter and tanker Berge Vanga (227,912 GRT) disappeared . The giant ship loaded with iron ore and oil probably sank in the South Atlantic at the end of November 1979 . However, the place of loss and the cause of the sinking remained unknown. The entire 40-man crew went down with the ship. It was later speculated that static electricity in the ore deposits could have caused an explosion in one of the oil tanks. After the tragedy, ships that could transport supplies and iron ore at the same time were no longer built. More detailed investigations into the tragedy remained under lock and key.
December 25, 1979	Lee Wang Zin	30th	The Taiwanese bulk carrier Lee Wang Zin, flying the Panamanian flag, overran a rocky reef in Dixon Entrance on the border between Canada and Alaska and capsized. The entire 30-person crew was killed in the accident, more than 1,000 cubic meters of oil flowed out of the wreck and led to an oil spill.
June 18, 1980	B406 / 6	18th	At the shipyard in Danzig there was an explosion on the fishing vessel (tuna catcher) B-406/6, which was built for the Soviet Union . During the cleaning and preparation of the engine room for painting work, petrol was used instead of the safe white spirit (white spirit) Extract intended for this purpose. The gas mixture exploded due to self-ignition or a spark from the electrical installation. 18 shipyard workers were killed in this disaster and another 10 suffered serious injuries.
September 8, 1980	Derbyshire	44	A catastrophic water ingress into a cargo hatch caused the largest so far lost ship to sink with the entire crew within a very short time without an SOS call off Japan in the Okinawa Sea. It lies at a depth of 4,100 meters and implodes into individual parts. The British ship was 295 meters long. This shipwreck was featured in the documentary In Distress: The sinking of MV Derbyshire .

Footnotes

Jump up ↑ Dance in Service . The mirror 37/1971.

↑ 1971 - La tragedia dell'Heleanna (La Gazzetta del Mezzogiorno) ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2
↑ Катастрофы на воде ( Memento of the original dated December 9, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / navy.h1.ru
^ Norman Hooke: Modern Shipping Disasters 1963-1987 . Lloyd's of London Press, London 1989, ISBN 1-85044-211-8 , pp. 470 .
^ Nautical chart of the Lower Ems
↑ Gerhard Vontra: DSR ship losses (PDF; 19 kB)
^ Boiler explosion on the "Anders Maersk" In: Die Welt . January 9, 1976.
^ Ocean Express. Accessed January 20, 2020 (English).
↑ THE LOSS OF THE OCEAN EXPRESS (Extract from "Supply Ship Operations 2008"). Accessed January 20, 2020 (English).
↑ US Coast Guard (Ed.): Marine Casualty Report . Ocean Express (Drilling Unit) Capsizing and sinking in the Gulf of Mexico on April 15, 1976 with loss of life (= Report No. USCG 16732/61865 ). June 1, 1978 (English, uscg.mil [PDF; accessed February 1, 2020]).
↑ https://incidentnews.noaa.gov/incident/6253
↑ https://www.fernsehserien.de/in-seenot/haben/1x01-der-untergang-der-mv-derbyshire-1232837

[1] Jump up ↑ Dance in Service . The mirror 37/1971.

List of major marine accidents 1971–1980

list

See also

Footnotes