MSC Flaminia
Germanischer Lloyd
IMO no. 9225615
The MSC Flaminia is a moving under the German flag container ship. It was known by a fire disaster in the summer of 2012. Conflicting data on the number and contents of such containers on the ship and the refusal of several states to leave the ship calling at a port of refuge, had led to criticism in politics and the public when dealing with these kinds of shipwrecks.
Bereedert is the ship of the NSB Niederelbe shipping company, owned by the closed-end ship funds Conti container 11 nautical GmbH & Co. KG MS "MSC FLAMINIA " of the fund provider Conti Reederei Putzbrunn near Munich. This has chartered the ship to the Mediterranean Shipping Company ( MSC).
The NSB Niederelbe shipping company, through its travel agency on the ship in three cabins, two double and one single cabin, for freighter travel.
Specifications
The ship is powered by a ten-cylinder two-stroke diesel engine with a capacity of 57100 kW. The engine, an MAN B & W 10 K 98 MC -C, which was built by Hyundai Engine & Machinery Co. under license, acting on a fixed pitch propeller. The ship thus reaches a speed of 25 kn.
In the bow of the ship is a cross beam control system with an output of 1500 kW. It has a variable pitch propeller.
For the power supply are five generators are available, including four Wärtsilä generators with a power input of each of 2625 kVA and a Caterpillar emergency generator with a connected load of 688 kVA.
On board the ship pitches for 6750 TEU or FEU 3326 are available. For 500 reefer containers that can be loaded on deck, standing connections.
The ship is approved for the transport of dangerous goods. The hull is eisverstärkt, classified the vessel with ice class E.
History
Construction and commissioning
The MSC Flaminia was built in 2001 under the hull number 4073 at Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering in South Korea. The keel was laid on March 5, the launching on 26 May 2001. After a construction period of five months the ship on 20 August 2001, it was delivered and put into service.
Accident in July 2012
The ship came 14 July 2012 on a trip from Charleston to Antwerp in the Atlantic in an explosion and subsequent fire.
Fire and explosion
The ship was in regular service on the way across the Atlantic from the United States to Europe. It had started his ten -day trip in the port of Charleston on the U.S. East Coast and was on his way to Antwerp, where it should arrive on July 17. The crew of the MSC Flaminia was at the time 23 men: three poles, 15 Filipinos and five German and two passengers to their nationality, the shipping company did not provide data.
On Saturday, July 14th, a fire broke out in the hold 4. The ship was at that time between Canada and the United Kingdom around 1000 nautical miles from the nearest land on an easterly course. In the extinguishing tests, there was yet unknown reason to a further explosion. Several sailors were injured. The first officer later succumbed to his injuries. Another sailor is missing. Beginning in October 2012, another sailor of the crew died as a result of burns he sustained in the accident.
Rescue and recovery
After the official call for help from MSC Flaminia on radio the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre ( MRCC ) triggered the British coast guard alarm and led the search and rescue operation a: on the emergency channels, 500 kHz and via GMDSS all were ordered to nearby ships to the scene of the accident. The next vessels in range of oil tankers DS Crown and the container ship MSC Stella the crew came to the rescue. The 300,000 - ton tanker DS Crown belongs to the German Dr. Peter's fleet and was at the time of call for help around 24 nautical miles ( about 45 km) from the doomed ship. He had heard the cry for help directly and made contact with the British MRCC on. The MSC Stella took three casualties caused serious burns on board and headed for the Azores. From the Portuguese archipelago of her rescue helicopter came to meet. They took the injured and took them by air to the nearest hospital in the Azores. One of the three injured seafarers was treated in the intensive care unit on the Portuguese mainland. The remaining unhurt rescued sailors were brought on board the DS Crown in the British port of Falmouth.
On Tuesday, 17 July, met the redirected from NSB container ship Hanjin Ottawa, the west was in the Azores, on the scene one, was there the second engineer aboard one of the assisting ships and then continued his journey to the Suez channel continues.
Smit Salvage, which were entrusted with the salvage of the vessel on July 16, initially sent two salvage tugs that. Fairmount Expedition of the Dutch shipping company Fairmount Marine and Anglian Sovereign of the British shipping company JP Knight, to the scene On July 18, moreover, the salvage tug Carlo Magno of the Italian shipping company Augustea was set to the scene in march.
On 17 July, another explosion occurred on board, after extinguishing the fire in the meantime arrived Fairmount Expedition had to be interrupted. The Anglian Sovereign met as second salvage tug on July 20, an on-site.
On the evening of July 20, the Fairmount Expedition took the disabled vessel in tow. The Anglian Sovereign continued the measures for fire fighting. The evening of July 21 arrived at the tow Carlo Magno initially remained on site to intervene when necessary.
Beginning of the calendar week 33 was the tow some 240 nautical miles off the British coast on hold, while on board on fire have been deleted in individual containers. Later, the tow had to remove due to weather deterioration at around 400 nautical miles from the coast, after no approval for the start- weather -protected, coastal areas or Nothafens in Ireland, the UK, France or Spain was granted.
The shipping company finally received on August 21, permission to leave the ship in tow German waters. Previously, teams of experts from France, England and the Netherlands analyzed the stability of the ship and had come to the conclusion that there were no more fires. On September 8, the ship reached its planned waiting position on the deep-water harbor west of Heligoland. On September 9, it was towed to Wilhelmshaven for new JadeWeserPort. There has been research into the whereabouts of the missing sailor and pumped the contaminated extinguishing water.
It turned out that at that time still embers were on board, so that the fire brigade had to be Wilhelmshaven in the early hours of Wednesday, 12 September, alarmed because a container had begun to glow from within. According to CCME, a number of containers were on board with paper and wool from their contents, a fire hazard had gone out. The last embers inside loaded with wood and paper containers could be until the end of October 2012 deleted.
Charge
On August 31, published Le Monde that the MSC Flaminia have about 40 tons of waste oil containing PCBs loaded. This is clear from a five -page Dangerous Goods List of the French environmental group Robin des Bois, by the competent French Seepräfektur ( Préfecture maritime) than had been considered good. The waste oil come from transformers, was intended for a reprocessing plant of the company group TREDI (a subsidiary group of Séché Environnement ) in France and had to be landed in Le Havre. According TREDI the transport is correct and conforms to the Basel Convention.
According to the article in Le Monde include dioxane, isopropylamine and the explosive nitromethane other hazardous materials in the charge. The accident had been destroyed or damaged more than half of the 2876 container.
According to the shipping line 151 containers of cargo were declared as dangerous goods. The loading list according to Radio Bremen 149 containers of toxic, flammable or corrosive substances. It was published on 30 August 2012. However, according to Spiegel Online, the loading list is still under wraps. She was the disaster experts in Wilhelmshaven known but may be published only with the consent of the shipping company.
Discharge
After the MSC Flaminia moored on September 9, 2012 at JadeWeserPort, began preparations for discharge.
On September 18, 2012 Radio Bremen reported that a discharge concept of Germanischer Lloyd vorliege. To ensure the stability of the ship, both containers have been discharged and pumped extinguishing water. The container in which an elevated temperature was found to have priority. Then the container followed with hazardous materials. After investigations by the CCME of 18 September and the renewed balance between the charge list, the stowage plan and the Dangerous Goods List whose number rose to 153 contained the two additional container vehicle parts and cosmetic products.
The discharge of the cargo ship began on September 27, 2012. Initially 80 undamaged containers were taken off the vessel, which contained partially regulated. Subsequently damaged containers should be brought ashore. For transport and cleaning tubs were made partly at the berth. On 18 December 2012, the discharge was terminated. Of the 2876 loaded containers were 153 hazardous material containers, of which 57 were intact, 24 damaged by smoke or heat and 72 destroyed. The latter were disposed of on site. The extinguishing water still on board had to be cleaned, for stability reasons, but remained on board. Before the ship for repair in Romania on March 18, 2013 left Wilhelmshaven, the end of February 2013 were started pumping the contaminated water used for extinguishing.
Political debate about the rescue of the ship
The United Kingdom prevented the passage of the ship through its coastal waters first with strict conditions. The UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency ( MCA) forbade the plan of the salvage company Smit Salvage, the cargo ship at a distance of 30 nautical miles to unload off the British coast, which would have taken several months. The MCA has prevailed that the disabled vessel was towed away from the British coast. France, too, had it rejected with reference to too high a risk to the environment that the MSC Flaminia is dragged into one of its ports.
Even before the ship reached the German coast, made the plan of the CCME in Germany for political discussions. Lower Saxony's Minister of the Environment Stefan Birkner (FDP ) said he was leaving to the judgment of the specialists of the shipping company that the ship afloat and the outer shell is intact. The CCME go from a maximum of 150 containers of dangerous goods on the ship. Maike Schaefer ( Green Bremen) requested information about what is in the dangerous goods containers, and what risks are associated with the recovery. Kreszentia Flauger (The Left Lower Saxony) thought it was a scandal that the contents of the container is not known.
The environmental organization Greenpeace demanded that the ship should, take it to drag through the Wadden Sea, are brought into a port of refuge, as foreseen in the EU security concept. As " a total mess " referred to the head of the Tourist Board North Sea, the entrainment of the ship by the Wadden Sea. The EU directives would oblige other countries to accept the ship. The Mayor of Varel, Gerd- Christian Wagner ( SPD), at the same time vice chairman of the protective association German North Sea coast, warned that the Wadden Sea to the " dumping ground for wrecked freighter" degenerating.
The fishermen's associations missing clear liability rules in the merchant navy. Accidents involving dangerous goods transports quickly led to environmental disasters and fishermen would have to fear for their existence.
Investigation into the cause of the accident
At the investigation and the mountains of the container official of the Water Police Stade, agents of the Federal Bureau of Maritime Casualty Investigation (BSU ) and the CCME were involved. The competent prosecutor and police officers secured on board, among other things the data of the ship's computer system.
The prosecutor in Hamburg examined whether crimes have been committed, and conducted an investigation for manslaughter.
On February 28, 2014, the Federal Bureau of Maritime Casualty submitted its inquiry report on the very serious marine casualty MSC Flaminia. Due to the damage in the area of generation of the fire whose exact cause can not be found. It is likely, however, that chemical processes have resulted in the charge to the fire. For several ways to identify how different dangerous goods can become inflamed.
Other salvage
The salvage of dangerous goods and the pumping of the extinguishing water have been completed until March 8, 2013. On March 15, 2013, the MSC Flaminia left after several delays Wilhelmshaven, to be placed in a shipyard in Romania Mangalia repaired. This plan failed after the Romanian authorities to the shipowner and the Federal Republic of Germany accused of illegal dumping of waste. The disposal of the still in the ship's cargo residues and large amounts scrap ( other, partly intact containers that were located below the melted by the fire load and, among others, stainless steel and marble contained ) was then advertised new and awarded to the Danish company, which previously already more than 30,000 tons of contaminated extinguishing water that was yielded by the fire-fighting operations in Wilhelmshaven, had disposed of. In early November left the ship then Romania, reaching on 22 November, the Port of Aarhus. There the scrap parts were removed from the ship to reduce the draft before the ship for further disposal of cargo residues and scrap in the Fayard shipyard in Odense could be docked. After completion of this work the ship to Romania has returned, now where to begin to repair the ship at the Daewoo Shipyard in Mangalia. The fire heavily damaged in the center section of the hull is to be cut out and replaced.