2012 Fire
On 14 July 2012, an explosion in hold 4 started a fire onboard MSC Flaminia while the ship was underway from Charleston, United States, to Antwerp, Belgium, forcing the crew to abandon the ship some 1,000 nautical miles (1,900 km; 1,200 mi) from nearest land in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.[4] Her Majesty's Coastguard received a distress signal at 10:07 (UTC (GMT)) and broadcast an alert to all vessels in the area.[5] DS Crown, a German-owned, Bahamas-flagged oil tanker en-route from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada to Falmouth, Cornwall, United Kingdom,[4] was the first to arrive at the scene and rescue 22 crew members and two passengers from a lifeboat and a liferaft. One member of the crew is missing and feared dead. Later MSC Stella changed her course to take four injured crew members onboard and transport them to the Azores. One of the injured crewmen later died from the burns he had sustained while fighting the fire.[5][3]
After the crew had abandoned the ship, MSC Flaminia was left drifting in mid-Atlantic. Dutchsalvage company Smit International signed a salvage contract for the stricken vessel, but the extent of the fire was not known until the first salvage tug, Fairmount Expedition, arrived at the scene on 17 July. According to the first reports, the fire was still ongoing in holds 4, 5 and 6, and the ship had developed a list of about 8.5 degrees as a result of the firefighting operations, but the engine room, the superstructure and the stern were not seriously damaged. A second explosion occured onboard the stricken container ship on 18 July, but the salvage efforts were continued shortly thereafter. The ship's own firefighting system was also started and the salvage personnel attempted to find the missing crewman. Another salvage tug,Anglian Sovereign, arrived at the scene later with Cobra cutting extinguisher capable of piercing the containers and extinguish the fire within. On 20 July,Fairmount Expedition began to tow MSC Flaminia towards Europe while Anglian Sovereign continued to cool down the fire. On 24 July, it was announced that the fire on board MSC Flaminia was under control and by 29 July the ships had arrived within 100 nautical miles (190 km; 120 mi) from the British coast. However, the deteriorating weather prevented the salvage crew from entering the ship, now listing 10 degrees, on 31 July and the ship was moved away from the coastline. Furthermore, although the fires had been put out in holds 4, 5 and 6, temperatures in hold 7 were still rising.[6]
The fire onboard MSC Flaminia has again raised concerns about misdeclared cargo. Containers containing explosive or flammable materials are normally carried on the decks for safety reasons, but if the cargo manifest is incorrect or falsified, they might be stowed inside the cargo holds where they create a potential hazard. The shipping company has confirmed that according to the cargo manifest the ship was not carrying calcium hypochlorite, a chemical compound responsible for several container ship fires in the 1990s, in any of the 2,876 containers onboard the ship, but due to the aforementioned reasons it can not be ruled out yet.[3][4][7]
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