| Egypt & Saudi Arabia. Fire likely cause of mythical RoRo ferry disaster; most other theories flawed |
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; "Al Blagha Photo Gallery")
| Sunday, 05 February 2006 | |
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Marian Martin In the wake of the sinking of the Al Salam Boccaccio 98, with the loss of around 1000 lives, there has been a spate of expert opinion about the likely cause of the accident being water ingress, mostly centred around some problem with the bow doors of the so-called RoRo ferry. There has also been suggestion that the 37 year old vessel was in poor condition, the crew were not competent, that it would not have met European safety standards – for reasons of both design and safety condition - and there have even been suggestions that the sale of redundant European ferries to “poorer” countries should be stopped. All these stories have little, if any, foundation. The facts are that the ill-fated vessel was not a RoRo ferry and did not, therefore, have any bow doors through which water could have entered and caused a disaster similar to the Estonia sinking. The master had almost 30 years experience. The vessel was in service in European waters until a few months ago and thus subject to European safety regulations; it returned to the Red Sea for use in the Haj service. The Al Salam Boccaccio 98 was not sold to a “poorer” country, nor even to a company operating on a shoestring, but to a subsidiary of the Al Blagha Group, a multi faceted 100% Saudi owned company, with activities in hotels, telecommunications, shipping, cargo and freight forwarding services, financial security networks and electric and électro-mechanical contracting. Its Maritime Company for Navigation is the only government approved freight forwarder for the Ministry of Defence and Aviation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The Group says “We, the Al Blagha Group, under its flagship The Maritime Company for Navigation are the largest operators of passenger ferries, owning the biggest fleet of vessels in the Red Sea. Some of them are the biggest in the region. We have a joint venture with an Egyptian partner, M/s El Salam Shipping Company. They are the leaders of marine engineering and technical operators in the Red Sea. They own 1/3rd of the business and we the remaining 2/3rd.” The most likely cause of this terrible disaster, from what is known of the ship and from crew survivors’ accounts, is that the sinking was a result of the fire on board. Exactly why is not yet known, but it could well be down to loss of stability due to water pumped aboard to try to extinguish the blaze and/or vehicles breaking loose as a result of the fire. |
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| Last Updated ( Sunday, 05 February 2006 ) |
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