Disaster ferry sister ship of two sunken vessels

The Al Salam 98.

The ferry involved in the Red Sea disaster is understood to be a sister ship of the Herald of Free Enterprise which sank off Zeebrugge in 1987 with the loss of nearly 200 lives.

The Al Salam 98 which sank carrying while carrying 1300 passengers in the Red Sea last night, was officially regarded as too unsafe to operate in European waters.

Two hundred and ninety people were rescued after the ferry sank between Saudi Arabia and Egypt, but hope for finding other survivors is fading.

Originally called Free Enterpise IV and one of eight similar vessels operated by Townsend Thorenson, Al Salam 98 had been "pensioned off to the Third World".

Another sister ship of the Herald, the Al Salam 95, sank in the Red Sea in October after a collision with a Cypriot commercial vessel.

A five-metre wide hole resulted in the ship sinking within three and a half minutes.

In that case almost all of the passengers were rescued.

Andrew Linington of Numast, the British ships' officers union, said that under European regulations introduced after the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster, it would be illegal to operate either vessel in Europe.

"This is a scandal. Passenger ships like it are not permitted to sail in European waters. If a ship is unsafe it is unsafe wherever it operates."

The rules introduced in the late 1990s ensured that "roll-on roll-off" ferries were redesigned to increase their stability so that an initial ingress of water was not necessarily catastrophic.

Mr Linington said that in developing countries an average of 1000 people had lost their lives in ferry disasters each year over the last decade, largely because legislation was not as stringent.

The 35-year Al Salam 98 went down 40 miles off the Egyptian port of Hurghada between midnight and 2am yesterday as most of the passengers were sleeping, plunging them into waters whose temperatures average around 19C at this time of year.

The cause was not immediately known, but there were high winds and a sandstorm overnight on Saudi Arabia's west coast, which the ship left on Thursday evening.
"It's a roll-on, roll-off ferry and there is big question mark over the stability of this kind of ship," said David Osler of the London shipping paper Lloyds List.

"It would only take a bit of water to get on board this ship and it would be all over. The percentage of this type of ferry involved in this type of disaster is huge."

Mr Osler said there was no indication that terrorism was the cause.

"Bad weather is looking likely," he said, although Mr Linington pointed out that the vessel should be able to survive most sea conditions.

The Saint Catherine, another ferry travelling the same route overnight in the opposite direction, received a distress message in which the Al Salam captain said his ship was in danger of sinking.

The agency did not say how the Saint Catherine reacted.

Mr Osler said it had been known ever since the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster that "roll-on, roll-off" type ferries had stability problems.

"It only takes a relatively small ingress of water to set up a sort of rocking effect which gains momentum and tilts the ship.

If water got on for any reason that is the sort of thing that could happen."

Mr Osler said a collision or a leak could be among the reasons for water to enter the vessel, which measures 118m (387ft) long by 23.6m (77ft) wide.

A structural survey last year had found there was "nothing significant to report", the company said.

The ship had a stability refit in October 2003.

He said the roll-on, roll-off type of ships were still in use, but since 1987, stability had been "massively" increased.

"This vessel predates all that and has been pensioned off to the Third World," he said.

It had served as an Italian vessel from 1970 to 1999.

The company's owner, Mamdouh Ismail, said the ship was more than 25 years old and registered in Panama.

The ship disappeared from radar screens shortly after sailing from the western Saudi port of Dubah at 7pm local time on Thursday night.

It was due to have arrive at Egypt's port of Safaga at 3am local time.

Dubah and Safaga lie virtually opposite each other, about 120 miles apart, at the northern end of the Red Sea.

A maritime official said the search was being hampered by bad weather.

Coastal stations received no SOS message from the crew, said Adel Shukri, head of administration at the Cairo headquarters of el-Salam Maritime Navigation.

The weather had been very poor overnight on the Saudi side of the Red Sea, with heavy winds and rain, he said.

But visibility should have been good out at sea, he added.

The Al Salam 98 received a safety management certificate from an Italian organisation in October 2005, covering safety drills and other on-board procedures.

- INDEPENDENT