MSC Flaminia

   The container ship MSC Flaminia, which caught fire in the mid-Atlantic is finally ready to be towed to German territorial waters, where the vessel will be fully surveyed and inspected by the shipyard and will decided her future. MSC Flaminia is seriously damaged and four of the cargo holds suffered sufficient damages during the fire, but according to many experts there is opportunity the ship to be repaired and to continue operations. The ship was delayed for about 2 months, waiting for approval from France, UK, Belgium and Netherlands to enter in their territorial waters as transit route to Germany. After experts boarded the ship and ensured that the fire is completely extinguished and there are no dangerous cargo on board, which may cause ecological disaster, MSC Flaminia was allowed to continue the route to Germany. Today the vessel left her holding position 20 miles south off Lands End and headed with 3.5 knots to the continent.

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   The container ship MSC Flaminia, which caught fire on board in the mid Atlantic is now drifting on 100 nautical miles off the UK coast. The ship still has no permission to enter into the sheltered area of the UK. Various teams of firefighting experts boarded the vessel to check if still there is any hotspots on board, as MSC Flaminia will nave no approval for getting close to the shore before the fire is fully extinguished. According to the report of the experts, there is no fire into the cargo holds 4 and 5, but still inside the containers there is thick smoke and some of them are still burning. The containers should be inspected one by one, before all the hotspots are extinguished and the safety of the ship is ensured. On board of MSC Flaminia there are various of dangerous cargoes, which was the main reason the ship to be kept away from the shore. The UK authorities are afraid from gassing of the port, or even new explosion when opening some of the conta…

   The fire on board of the container ship MSC Flaminia is under control and the ship is on 260 nautical miles off European Coast. The tug boat Anglian Sovereign is monitoring the temperature on board of the trans-ocean container ship with special laser technology. The fire is extinguished but the dense smoke is still getting out of the cargo holds of the ship. The salvage team is not able to get control of the bridge and engine room of MSC Flaminia, but after the smoke stops, they will board the ship and get control of it. The three tugs are monitoring any part of the ship and if the temperature increase or the fire start in any place, they will continue fire fighting, but now there is no rudiments of acting fire on MSC Flaminia.

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   The fire on board of MSC Flaminia is growing and now includes 1200 TEU from the cargo on board. The salvage operations of the large container ship, which exploded in the mid Atlantic, started a few days ago, but the firefighting tugs are still no able to get control of the fire. The ship MSC Flaminia is drifting with 8.2 degrees heel to starboard, due to the burning containers and fire fighting equipment on board. On the scene of the accident now there are 3 tugs - Fairmount Expedition, Anglian Sovereign and Carlo Mango, which deluge the fire with water. On board of the container ship were boarded also 4 people, who are trying to re-activate the firefighting system of MSC Flaminia and also boarded additional equipment. The salvage operations are head by SMIT company, which has open agreement for the rescue operations of the container ship. According to information from them, the superstructure, stern and bridge are no affected by the fire, but now more than…

   Towing and salvage tugs arrived on the position of the explosion of the container ship MSC Flaminia and started the operations for fire fighting and rescue of the large vessel. Meanwhile, second explosion on board of the MSC Flaminia was reported by the salvage tugs, which was seen from the burning cargo hold. According to the latest information neither the superstructure, not the engine room and bridge were directly affected by the fire on board, so the rescuers are highly optimistic that the fire will be extinguished and the ship will be saved. The plan for the rescue of the ship include boarding of engineer on MSC Flaminia, who should re-activate the fire fighting system on board and with the support of the tug to extinguish the fire on board and to get the control of the vessel. The salvage operation is still not started and the container vessel is drifting to European coast about 1000 nautical miles off.

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   The fire, which started on 14th July 2012 in the cargo holds of MSC Flaminia is still not extinguished. The container ship is drifting in the mid Atlantic and billowing thick smoke, which is seen from the passing cargo ships in the vicinity. All the crew members left the ship, after the explosion on board and the ship is not under control, such as the fire on board. The Falmouth Coastguard sent two fire fighting tugs at the scene of the accident, but their ETA is the afternoon of 17th July 2012. The coastguard and the UK authorities have no other possible actions, as they reported that no investigation can be held before the fire is extinguished and the specialists inspect and check the place of the explosion. The crew members of MSC Flaminia commented that the fire started in cargo hold number 4, where were loaded some containers with combustible bleaching agent calcium hypochlorite.

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   Fire and explosion on board of the container ship MSC Flaminia, caused full evacuation of the vessel. The ship was carrying over 6500 TEU from the US port Charleston to Antwerpen Belgium, when suffered fire in one of the cargo holds in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. The reason of the fire was most probably due to wrong manifest in the container documents. The ship exploded and after that was caught on fire, which injured 4 crew members. The distress signal was sent from the navigation officer at 1007 on 14th July 2012 and the Falmouth Coastguard asked the crew to abandon the container ship MSC Flaminia. After the accident one of the crew members is missing and 2 are seriously injured. The scene of the incident was in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, so the closest vessels were about 6 hours away from MSC Flaminia, but when getting the distress signal changed courses to the ship in fire. On the place arrived five merchant ships and a few rescue boats, wh…