SS Atlantic Empress
{{Short description|Greek oil tanker; collided, sank, and spilled oil in the Caribbean Sea in 1979}}
{{Coord|13|05|N|55|28|W|type:event|display=title}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2021}}
| {{Infobox ship begin}}
{{Infobox ship image | Ship image= | Ship caption= }} {{Infobox ship career | Hide header= | Ship country= Liberia | Ship flag= {{Shipboxflag|Liberia|civil}} | Ship name=SS Atlantic Empress | Ship namesake= | Ship owner=South Gulf Shipping Co. Ltd., Greece | Ship operator= | Ship registry= | Ship route= Beaumont, Texas | Ship ordered= | Ship awarded= | Ship builder=Odense Staalskibsværft, Odense, Denmark | Ship original cost= $143.45 billion | Ship yard number=49 | Ship way number= | Ship laid down= | Ship launched=16 February 1974 | Ship sponsor= | Ship christened= | Ship completed=April 1974 | Ship acquired= | Ship maiden voyage= | Ship in service= | Ship out of service= | Ship renamed= | Ship reclassified= | Ship refit= | Ship struck= | Ship reinstated= | Ship homeport= | Ship identification={{IMO Number|7358975}} | Ship motto= | Ship fate=Sank, 3 August 1979 | Ship notes= | Ship badge= }} {{Infobox ship characteristics | Hide header= | Ship class= | Ship type= VLCC | Ship tonnage=*{{GT|128,398}}
| Ship displacement= | Ship length=*{{Convert|347.2|m|ftin|abbr=on}} o/a
| Ship beam= {{Convert|51.8|m|ftin|abbr=on}} | Ship height= | Ship draught= {{Convert|22.1|m|ftin|abbr=on}} | Ship depth= {{Convert|28.4|m|ftin|abbr=on}} | Ship hold depth= | Ship decks= | Ship deck clearance= | Ship ramps= | Ship ice class= | Ship power= | Ship propulsion=Steam turbines, {{Convert|23866|kW|0|abbr=on}}, 1 screw | Ship speed= {{Convert|16|kn|lk=in}} | Ship range= | Ship endurance= | Ship boats= | Ship capacity= | Ship crew= | Ship sensors= | Ship notes= }} |
Ship history
The Atlantic Empress was a large crude oil carrier built at the Odense Staalskibsværft shipyard in Odense, Denmark, and launched on 16 February 1974. At the time of her sinking, she was owned by the South Gulf Shipping Company of Greece, and flagged in Liberia.
===Collision and sinking===
On 19 July 1979 Atlantic Empress collided with the Aegean Captain, another fully laden Greek supertanker, {{convert|18|NM|km}} east of the island of Tobago. At the time of the collision Atlantic Empress was sailing from Saudi Arabia to Beaumont, Texas, with a cargo of light crude oil owned by Mobil Oil. Aegean Captain was en route to Singapore from Aruba.{{cite journal |last=Soter |first=Tom |date=October 1979 |title=Supertankers Collide in Caribbean |journal=Firehouse |publisher=Cygnus Business Media |accessdate=1 November 2012 |url=http://www.tomsoter.com/?q=node/882 }}
In heavy rain and thick fog the two ships did not see each other until they were {{Convert|600|yd|m|order=flip}} apart. Aegean Captain changed course, but it was too late; at 7:15 p.m, the two ships collided, with the Empress tearing a hole in the Captain{{'}}s starboard bow. Large fires began on each ship, which were soon beyond the control of the crews, who abandoned their ships.
The collision and fire claimed the lives of 26 of the Empress's crew members, and one crew member on the Captain.{{cite web |url= http://www.counterspill.org/article/atlantic-empress-and-aegean-captain-oil-spill-brief-history |title=Atlantic Empress And Aegean Captain Oil Spill: A Brief History |first=Carly |last=Gillis |work=CounterSpill |date=17 September 2011 |accessdate=1 November 2012}} The remaining crew from both ships were taken to Tobago for medical treatment, while the Empress{{'}}s captain was transported to a hospital in Texas, having inhaled fire.
Firefighters from the Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard brought the fires aboard the Captain under control the next day, and members of her crew returned to the ship, and were able to bring her into Curaçao, where her cargo was off-loaded. Meanwhile, a five-man specialist emergency crew from the Dutch Salvage organization Smit InternationalJan Sonneveld, one of the five salvage team and the German Bugsier, managed by a Salvage inspector of Smit International, attempted to control the fire aboard Empress, and contain the spreading oil slick. Two tugs (one of them being the Smit Zwarte Zee) towed the burning ship further out to sea.
On 24 July, a week after the collision, the Empress was still burning, and also listing, when an explosion occurred that increased the rate of flow. The next day another larger explosion increased the rate to {{convert|7000|to|15,000|USgal/h|m3/h|order=flip}}, twice the previous rate. Finally, on 3 August, the Empress sank, having spilled 287,000 metric tonnes of crude oil into the Caribbean Sea.
By comparison, in the Exxon Valdez spill ten years later 37,000 metric tonnes of oil was released.{{cite web |url=http://www.itopf.com/information-services/data-and-statistics/statistics/ |title=Major Tanker Oil Spills |work=International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation |year=2012 |accessdate=1 November 2012 |archive-date=16 December 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201216083020/https://www.itopf.org/404/ |url-status=dead }}
See also
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{cite web |url=https://tomsoter.com/2020/01/07/oil-tanker-fire/ |title=Oil Tanker Fire |first=Tom |last=Soter |work=Articles, Magazines 1970-1979 }}
- {{cite web |url=http://www.aukevisser.nl/supertankers/part-1/id704.htm |title=Images of Atlantic Empress & Aegean Captain collision |first=Auke |last=Visser |work=International Super Tankers }}
- {{cite news |url= http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8664684.stm |title=How big is the Deepwater Horizon oil spill? |publisher=BBC News |date=7 May 2010 }}
- {{cite news |url= http://www.jansonneveld.nl |title=Jan Sonneveld |date=5 February 2014 }}
{{1979 shipwrecks}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Atlantic Empress}}
Category:Ships built in Odense
Category:Maritime incidents in 1979