Greece to italy ferry on fire

Search and rescue aircraft ( C-130 ) currently on station. 4 other vessels with AIS on station. 50 knot winds.

This is one of Anek's Ancona/Patras/Igounomitsa ferries. A RoRo route that some of us have been on a couple of times.
 
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There are times when I am glad i am in my armchair. I cant imagine a worse situation to be in.
hope it is not as bad as it sounds.
 
Marinetraffic has pings off about 8 ferries and a bulk carrier apparently trying to form a wind and wave break to allow smaller boats in closer.

Sounds pretty grim.

I did the same trip almost a year ago to the day.

Apparently there is some mobile connectivity and pax have been in contact with the shore.
 
Greek TV has been running video taken by mobile phones. It all looks pretty dreadful and the crew don't seem very organised. Apparently one life raft was launched only to be blown away as it wasn't secured to the ship!

While I don't want to speculate too much on the cause of the fire, when we did the journey a couple of weeks ago (with Minoan not Anek) there was quite a long wait to disembark. A number of people, passengers & crew, were smoking on the car deck, despite No Smoking signs. I almost took a photo of one crew member who was standing directly under a No Smoking sign, lighting up.

It sounds as if the fire started while the ship was at sea so no-one should have been in the garages but I wonder if slack safety procedures contributed to this.
 
Its going to be a long night out there


[(Reuters) - Italian and Greek helicopter crews prepared to work through the night to airlift passengers in pairs off a burning ferry adrift in the Adriatic Sea, battling darkness and bad weather that hampered rescue efforts by other ships throughout Sunday.
Helicopters were plucking passengers off the Italian-flagged Norman Atlantic and transferring them to a nearby vessel, after a dramatic day that began when a fire broke out on its lower deck in the early hours.
A Greek government official said one man had died but there were no other confirmed reports of casualties among almost 500 passengers and crew and as night fell, Greek authorities said 156 people were clear of the danger zone.]
 
Melody said:
It sounds as if the fire started while the ship was at sea so no-one should have been in the garages but I wonder if slack safety procedures contributed to this.
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Not ferry related but earlier this year I witnessed a van that went on fire just a few minutes after the driver had parked it in a car park. Some sort of short behind the dash. Suppose that could have happened in this instance as it is suggested that fire started on the car deck.
 
roblpm said:
Do they not have lifeboats on these things?? Seems like they have no provision for fire??
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Lifeboats, rafts, the usual stuff.

The Norman Atlantic was built in 2009 so she's all but brand new. The car decks of those ferries have sprinklers on them. Extinguishers and hoses are scattered about. Who knows the state of readiness of the systems and crew though. The usual South Eastern Mediterranean attitude to health and safety and smoking and other inconvenient regulations is usually quite prevalent aboard the ferries.

The ability of the crew and the long distance drivers to shoehorn 40 ton artics in to the spaces is impressive and frequently several rows of vehicles can only be traversed via one route as the gaps between the trucks is so narrow. A fire in an area like that would be difficult to find, impossible to isolate and very difficult to fight without an automated system. Who knows what cargo would be aboard on the Greece to Italy trip.

The area north of Corfu appeared to be experiencing 30 knot winds and from very, very few pictures and a brief video insert perhaps a 2 to 3 metre swell at most. Why the media is reporting 'huge' seas one can only speculate. Why boats couldn't be launched will no doubt be a subject for the enquiry once it is under way.

24 hours on and the vessel is still afloat, apparently still smouldering at least and still has a lot of people aboard. ( over 200? ) her AIS signal is 16 hours old so perhaps systems are failing. There is a cluster of other vessel AIS data and SAR aircraft still around her last reported position though.

Melody said:
It sounds as if the fire started while the ship was at sea so no-one should have been in the garages but I wonder if slack safety procedures contributed to this.
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Most of the Greek/Italy ferries operate 'camping on board' where people with camper vans and drivers of trucks with sleeper cabs can stay with their vehicles for the overnight trip. It is usually in the high season only but trucks are organised for fairly comfortable overnighting and I'd not be surprised if there was someone in a sleeper cab, even at this time of the year. Who knows, perhaps a runaway Eberspacher heater? Pure speculation!
 
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Something is not right here; this is an Italian flagged ship, off the coast of Albania and not too far from the the Italian coast; the storm has gone long ago and still the rescue is slow and perhaps disorganised. The Greek authorities and rescue services have shown a good initiative despite the ship being far away from Greece; the Italians and Albanians have a lot to answers for; am I missing something?
 
CAPTAIN FANTASTIC said:
Something is not right here; this is an Italian flagged ship, off the coast of Albania and not too far from the the Italian coast; the storm has gone long ago and still the rescue is slow and perhaps disorganised. The Greek authorities and rescue services have shown a good initiative despite the ship being far away from Greece; the Italians and Albanians have a lot to answers for; am I missing something?
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She is actually an Italian built, Italian owned, and Italian flagged vessel (she is owned by Visemar Ro-Ro srl and chartered to ANEK Lines of Greece).

http://www.ferry-site.dk/ferry.php?id=9435466
 
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