THE BODIES of two crewmen who went missing after their cargo ship collided with a Cypriot cruise liner off the cast of Haifa, in Israel, were yesterday recovered by divers.
The two bodies were found inside the sunken ship, where the crewmen had apparently been trapped when their vessel was accidentally rammed.
The two victims – a Ukrainian and an Indonesian – were the ship’s first mate and engineer, according to police.
The incident occurred close to 10pm on Thursday, when the passenger ship Salamis Glory left Haifa port. Several minutes later, it struck the Shelly, an Israeli-owned Slovak-flagged cargo vessel anchored offshore. Soon after, the cargo ship began listing and sank.
Navy, Coast Guard and Haifa Port rescue teams had been searching for the missing sailors throughout the night.
Port officials said the accident occurred after the passenger liner’s steering system encountered technical problems. Other news sources reported that the liner went over the cargo ship and cut it in half.
Haifa Bay administration officials said faulty piloting on the Cypriot ship’s part caused the collision.
“A passenger ship was sailing out of the harbour and at the entrance of the port, about three kilometres out, hit a docked vessel,” said Brigadier-General Ram Rutberg, commander of a navy base in Haifa, whose forces were involved in the rescue efforts.
Eleven of the cargo ship’s crew members escaped their sinking craft in a rescue launch lowered by the passenger liner and were picked up by the Navy.
“We retrieved 11 of the 13 crew members unharmed and then realised that two were missing,” he told reporters in a conference call.
All of the Salamis’ 500 passengers, of whom 148 are Cypriot and had sailed from the island, were unharmed and the vessel was pulled by two tugboats to Haifa Bay yesterday, with light damage visible on its hull.
A couple of months ago, a problem was reported with the 42-year-old ship’s ventilation system.
Members of an enquiry committee formed by the Transportation Ministry boarded the vessel to conduct an investigation and question the crew members. A report is expected to be submitted within a week.
Passengers of the Salamis Glory were at first not allowed to leave the craft, which will stay in the Bay until the alleged problems in its navigation system are fixed.
Meanwhile, the Shelly rests some 30 metres underwater, but its masts are still visible and pose a risk to other vessels in the bay. The Port’s administration said that the location would be marked by a warning float.
One of the ship’s officers, Mandeta Ayur of Indonesia said that the collision occurred while he was sleeping.
Haifa Port Director Amos Uzani has said that a much greater disaster had been averted.
Kyriakos Kofteros is a marine surveyor with the Department of Merchant Shipping at the Communication and Works Ministry, and he yesterday told the Mail that two inspectors were last night dispatched to Israel in order to look into the incident.
“A captain, along with a mechanical engineer, will be testing the Salamis’ navigation system, as that is where the problem is said to have come from,” he said.
“Nevertheless we don’t yet know for sure if this is true, as there is a lot of speculation circulating at present.”
Kofteros also explained that the two-man team will be looking at the ship’s Voyage Data Recorder, similar to the black box on an aeroplane.
It has also been revealed that the ship passed all sea worthiness checks from the Greek and Cypriot authorities earlier this summer and is in possession of all the relevant documentation.
Salamis Lines yesterday announced that following the incident, “the ship, passengers and crew were not in any danger and are fine.”
The statement went on to say that the ship’s scheduled return to Limassol port at 9am yesterday after a two-day cruise to the Holy Lands had been delayed. The company said that it was trying to repatriate all passenger to Cyprus and that the five-day cruise to the Greek islands due to embark from Limassol late on Friday was cancelled.
It is not yet clear when the Salamis Glory will return to Cyprus.
Chairman of Salamis Tours Vasos Hadjitheodosiou said that passengers, “did not panic at the time of the collision and many didn’t even realise what had happened.”
He added that the company, “will ensure that passengers’ trips back to Cyprus are as comfortable as possible.”
The 148 Cypriots were due to fly from Tel Aviv to Larnaca in the early hours of this morning.
n For further information, affected passengers are asked to call Salamis on: 25-860307 / 25-860310 or 25-860311
