[5][23][24], The Oceanos wreck lies at a depth of between 92m (302ft) and 97m (318ft), about 5km (3.1mi) offshore. Hills organized the orderly evacuation of passengers by the helicopters, later reporting that Avranas was among the first to leave at this point. The ocean had reached the point where the sea was 81 meters deep. A very small loss of hull integrity caused a storage tank in the lower machine spaces to fill with sea water. A South African navy diver said the captain of the sunken Greek liner Oceanos pushed past elderly pa. Unfortunately, conditions did not live up to expectations. Reports indicate that at around 21:30 off the Wild Coast of the Transkei, the Oceanus Cruise ship lost its power following an explosion in the engine room. The function of a rebreather is to re-circulate the unused oxygen in the exhaled breath whilst scrubbing it of all traces of carbon dioxide. The Concordia was supposed to take passengers on a seven-day Italian cruise from Civitavecchia to Savona. In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, newspapers cast Smith as a hero, the brave captain who went down with his ship. And he did not lighten his position after the accident when he told a foreign television station: The ship's abandonment applies to . The crew called him a secretary. http://www.aolvideoblog.com/2007/08/21/crew-bails-on-passengers-of-sinking-cruise-liner/. Navy Diver Says Oceanos Captain Demanded to Be One of First Rescued But the Carpathia was 58 milesor some four hoursaway. What Happened to the Cruise Ship Oceanos? - LuxuryTravelDiva There were 200 sailors on the ship as crew members. After twenty-seven minutes at 90m and thirty-four minutes on run time, an orange submersible marker buoy broke the surface, and the deep-water back divers bailed into the water. HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate. He also knew that its 20 lifeboats, with a total capacity of 1,178, couldnt begin to accommodate the more than 2,200 passengers and crew members aboard. For a villain, there was J. Bruce Ismay, the White Star chairman, who got off in a lifeboat and was accused of pressuring Smith to maintain a reckless speed. Technicians pass in a small boat near the stricken cruise liner Costa Concordia lying aground in front of the Isola del Giglio on January 26, 2012 after hitting underwater rocks on January 13. Former captain of the Costa Concordia Francesco Schettino speaks with reporters after being aboard the ship with the team of experts inspecting the wreck on February 27, 2014 in Isola del Giglio, Italy. International standards for sea captains vary. On the front page was a Kostas Mitropoulos cartoon that lampooned the Captain, it read: Where to take you captain?the helicopter pilot asked him as he rescued him from the sinking ship named Ocean of failures. Hills was interviewed in the special, and related that some years later he had been on board when the MS Achille Lauro of Star Lauro sank. This day turned out much better than expected. Most have heard the story, the sinking of the OCEANOS with 571 passengers and crew on board, none of whom suffered . "I can't lift my face before the passengers and family members of those missing," Lee told reporters. It was abject cowardice.". But with no sign of conditions improving, the captain eventually decided to lift anchor and the Oceanos, with 581 guests and crew on board, sailed off into 40-knot winds and 9m-high (30ft) waves. But the weather was so bad that the helicopter crew advised against boarding". What happened to the captain and crew of the Oceanos? Find History on Facebook (Opens in a new window), Find History on Twitter (Opens in a new window), Find History on YouTube (Opens in a new window), Find History on Instagram (Opens in a new window), Find History on TikTok (Opens in a new window), https://www.history.com/news/titanic-captain-edward-smith-final-hours-death. The Oceanos lies at a depth between 92m and 97m, about 5km offshore, on the western edge of the mighty Agulhas current. "Ahab is a great example in the sense that he knows a captain should go down with his ship," says Wyn Kelley, a Melville scholar at MIT. [3] Entertainment manager Robin Boltman was credited with gathering the passengers in the lounge and playing music to calm them. hide caption. [9], A Greek board of inquiry found Avranas and four officers negligent in their handling of the disaster. Others respect it as "an unwritten rule or law of the sea," said Capt. A wide range of diverse considerations had to be taken care of, both personally and as a team. After that, three preparative dives were conducted, including a complete simulation dive on the Griqualand, which lies at 50m, where gas exchanges and emergency procedures were rehearsed. August 3, 1991: An explosion shakes the engine room of the Greek cruise ship, Oceanos, as it sails off the South African coast. Smiths body was never recovered, and his final moments remain a mystery, with no shortage of conflicting accountsincluding one in which he jumped off the ship holding a baby. In another instance, Smith ordered that a lifeboat be lowered from the boat deck to the promenade deck, so passengers could climb in more easily. Has the old idea that captains should not abandon ship itself been abandoned? Realizing the ships fate, the crew fled in panic, neglecting to close the lower deck portholes, which is standard policy during emergency procedures. The one who abandoned ship along with his officers and crew and left the entertainers aboard to organize the rescue in August of 1991 off the African coast? What is glucosamine and fish oil good for? But witnesses said he appeared on the bridge of the Titanic just moments later, asking what the storied ship, making its maiden voyage across the Atlantic, had struck. From Times Wire Services. "It is my responsibility. On open-circuit scuba, the exhaled breath is not fed back into the system but is expelled and is no longer useable. [9][11][16][17] Avranas's emergency management was again widely cited after the Costa Concordia disaster in 2012. While the ship could have stayed afloat with up to four flooded compartments, depending on their location, five tipped into catastrophic territory. The current, too, was very strong, and the team was worried. Spouse. He immediately ordered an evacuation of all passengers and crew. Costa Concordia disaster, the capsizing of an Italian cruise ship on January 13, 2012, after it struck rocks off the coast of Giglio Island in the Tyrrhenian Sea. Within eight minutes I closed the waterproof doors. In more than 40 years at sea he had rarely been involved in an accident and never held accountable for one. As author Wyn Craig Wade wrote in The Titanic: End of a Dream, Captain Smith had at least five different deaths, from heroic to ignominious. Rumors of his survival also circulated. The current on the surface was running reverse, and there was no sign of the dreaded Northeaster. Just before he boarded a train to Washington, Pryal reported, the man smiled at him and said, Be good, shipmate, until we meet again., There is no possibility I am mistaken. Pryal told a reporter. The weather forecast was predicting a strong northeasterly wind by morning, a factor that could easily mean the end of the expedition. No one knows exactly where Captain E.J. Must a captain be the last one off a sinking ship? The impact on the Scole Rocks occurred at about 9:45 p.m. local time, and the first person to contact rescue officials about the ship was someone on the shore, according to the investigative report. Creating equal decompression profiles for the two systems was a difficult task for Barry that took many hours of calculation. It was now just after 12:30 a.m. Captain of White Star Liner, RMS Titanic, Commander Edward J. Smith, c. 1911. Being one of the worlds most difficult wrecks to reach and successfully dive, the Oceanos offers great rewards for technical divers at the top of their game. In 1991, Yiannis Avranas, the captain of a Greek cruise liner, was also strongly criticised after leaving the ship as it started to sink off the South African coast. On August 3, 1991, Oceanos set sail for East London, South Africa and headed north for Durban, led by Captain Yiannis Avranas. Unable to spend sufficient time on the wreck, the Camera 7 team was forced to deploy a remote, surface-controlled camera to acquire the footage required for their investigation. There were also 12 inflatable rescue media on the cruise ship. Oceanos shipwreck | Wild Coast The Oceanos lies at a depth between 92m and 97m, about 5km offshore, on the western edge of the mighty Agulhas current. All Rights Reserved. We were crazy to do that dive.. Both literature and real life offer plenty of examples of shipmasters who paid the ultimate sacrifice to protect their passengers and crew. "It comes from the tradition that the captain has ultimate responsibility and should put the care of others ahead of his own well-being in the discharge of his duties," says David Winkler, program director with the Naval Historical Foundation. We strive for accuracy and fairness. Whether or not Captain Francesco Schettino was trying to impress his girlfriend is debatable. Heres some good live video when it happened!!! All the while, the wind and swell were steadily dropping and, at 12:30, the decision to dive was made. Does anyone know of the current whereabouts of former Captain Yiannis Avranas of the doomed Oceanos? Some consider them to be dangerous deviations from planned routes. The rescue featured in episode 4 of Shockwave, first aired 21 December 2007. From mariners on ships plying the world's oceans, the answer is loud and clear: Aye. Its captain was accused of manslaughter and abandoning the 4,200 passengers and crew on the night of the wreck. Technical diving is an exact science, and every member of the team performed their tasks with efficiency and focus. The lights went out and the ship got an unusual inclination, but none of the crew advised us, he says in telephone communication from Ireland. Smith, who evacuated the ship women and children first until there were no lifeboats left, and then perished with it. TRY ASKING HOST DOUGhe usually knows those things. The chief engineer reported to Captain Avranas that water was entering the hull and flooding the generator room. WATCH: Full episodes of When Big Things Go Wrong online now. There was no reply to either. All three divers were ecstatic and eager to make the most of the prevailing conditions; the second dive was scheduled for the following day. Is there confession in the Armenian Church? On one occasion the 200-liter drum we used as a marker buoy was pulled down to 34m by the current. The Costa Concordia ran aground off the Italian coast in 2012, killing 32 people. What happened to the captain of the Oceanos ship? Having reached the limit of Bretts safe air supply and time underwater, the divers returned to the anchor line to begin their ascent. Should oxygen levels drop below those required by the diver, O2 can be computationally or manually injected into the system from an onboard cylinder to replenish the supply. MTS Oceanos was a French-built and Greek-owned cruise ship that sank in 1991. He said he supervised the . "I'm kind of flummoxed that a master of a passenger ship anywhere in the world would not understand his obligation extends until that last person is safely off the ship," says Craig Allen, director of the Arctic Law & Policy Institute at the University of Washington. The unfitted ventilation pipe was said to have left a 10cm hole in the watertight bulkhead between the generator and the sewerage tank. [10][11] Among the entertainers onboard was the South African cabaret performer, Alvon Collison,[12][13] who later reported that he had begun singing an impromptu repertoire as the ship was sinking, in an effort to keep the passengers' spirits up. Oceanos was very poorly maintained while simultaneously operating in one of the most dangerous and rough areas of the oceans. Although Barry, Paul, and Brett would dive to the Oceanos as a team, they were all on different equipment. "[5] Hills reportedly rescued Avranas' dog and released his canary. The notorious master of the vessel was Captain Yiannis Avranas. Other information if you google or youtube it. The ship reportedly headed into 40-knot winds and 30-foot swells, and thus the typical sail-away outdoor deck party with British entertainers Moss and Tracy Hills was moved to an indoor lounge. I saw Captain Smith getting excited; passengers would not have noticed, but I did, May Sloan, a surviving Titanic stewardess, wrote in a letter shortly after the disaster. "In this case there was more than enough time for the moment of panic to pass. A magician who had been performing on the ship took over the bridge, monitoring rescue calls, as a fellow entertainer kept passengers calm by playing Beatles songs on his guitar. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! This statement has placed the 51-year-old . WE ARE ALLOWED TO DO BUSINESS IN NEW YORK, TEXAS AND KENTUCKY ALONG WITH OTHER STATES WHERE WE ARE REGISTERED, EXEMPTED OR EXCLUDED FROM REGISTRATION. Those who did earned instant infamy, like the captain of the Greek luxury liner Oceanos, which sank in rough seas off South Africa in 1991. ", Report: Captain claims he "tripped" into lifeboat. MTS Oceanos - Wikipedia It is generally a sequence of events, things that line up in a bad way that ultimately create that incident., READ MORE: 5 Maritime Disasters You Might Not Know About. At any time when you have an incident similar to Concordia, there is nevera single causal factor, says Brad Schoenwald, a senior marine inspector at the United States Coast Guard. [1] He was married to British national Davina Avrana.[3]. March 5, 2004. Nothing less will do in this profession," said Jorgen Loren, captain of a passenger ferry operating between Sweden and Denmark and chairman of the Swedish Maritime Officer's Association. Brodersen, 60, said he never had to deal with that kind of situation, but he has sometimes thought about his own limit, when his survival instinct would trump the hope of salvaging a doomed ship. BE SURE TO FIRST CONSULT WITH A QUALIFIED FINANCIAL ADVISER, TAX PROFESSIONAL, OR ATTORNEY BEFORE IMPLEMENTING ANY STRATEGY OR RECOMMENDATION DISCUSSED HEREIN. In the time of need, however, the crew found that everything was useless. Tonight on Dateline(NBC) they are doing a special about the sinking of the Greek cruise ship, Oceanos, and the survivors from 8-4-91. After five days of staying at the hotel, the other Greek sailors with the assistance of the Greek consular authorities also escaped. What happened to the captain of the Oceanos? - AnswersAll Use of this site is governed by the User Agreement, Privacy Policy(function(w,d){var loader=function(){var s=d.createElement("script"),tag=d.getElementsByTagName("script")[0];s.src="https://cdn.iubenda.com/iubenda.js";tag.parentNode.insertBefore(s,tag);};if(w.addEventListener){w.addEventListener("load",loader,false);}else if(w.attachEvent){w.attachEvent("onload",loader);}else{w.onload=loader;}})(window,document); and Disclosure Policy. ", First published on January 19, 2012 / 3:02 PM. The 9 Worst Cruise Ship Disasters | Oyster.com "It is not just unseemly for a captain to leave a ship," Shealy says. MTS Oceanos was a French-built and Greek-owned cruise ship that sank in 1991 when it suffered uncontrolled flooding.MTS Oceanos. "He deeply regrets not being with his crew. Without a driving force, however, he had to find another solution., The captain broadcast SOS. The Greek government is not doing anything about the incident. The 402 passengers and 179 crew members all survived, but Captain Yiannis Avranas and other officers left the ship while some passengers were still on board. "Heres why and how the Oceanos sank off the Wild Coast", Sunday Tribune, 26 Feb, 2017, A Captain's Tale: 'The Rescue Was Perfect - Everybody Is Safe', OCEANOS CAPTAIN INSISTED ON EARLY RESCUE, DIVER SAYS, South Africa probes cause of luxury liner's sinking, Cruise captain sparks outrage among mariners, "Costa Concordia Tragedy: Capt. But over 100 people left on board, crew and passengers. In Moby-Dick, Captain Ahab sets off to hunt the whale, leaving the capable Starbuck in charge. Avranas was charged with misconduct after it was discovered that he and numerous crew members left the ship while the passengers remained behind. Smith was back in the news in 1940, when a letter in Life magazine suggested that the captain had ended his days as an elderly derelict in Lima, Ohio, known as Silent Smith. Among the evidence: The man had arrived in town three years after the Titanic disaster, would only give his name as Smith, was about Smiths age and size, and bore the sort of tattoos common among seafarers. He made the wrong choice. 2012 The Associated Press. None of the 571 passengers drowned. They had returned them as they had sent them., Two babies, one 22 days old and the other one year old I put them down with a bucket (bucket) on the boat, he says. is University of Washington a good school. The divers had penetrated 70m into the wreck with the aid of the scooters. Before the sailing they were given for inspection. And on the boat what could he do in addition., The circumstances were tragic and my responsibility was more than great. Maritime officials who did not want to be quoted said it was . Those who did earned instant infamy, like the captain of the Greek luxury liner Oceanos, which sank in rough seas off South Africa in 1991. Those who did earned instant infamy, like the captain of the Greek luxury liner Oceanos, which sank in rough seas off South Africa in 1991. / Updated May 22, 2010 / 12:42 PM PDT 20 PHOTOS . The captain of the Oceanos was alerted to the problem after receiving reports of water entering some of the cabins on board. The captain goes down with the ship is a maritime tradition suggesting that a captain is honor-bound to stay on a sinking ship until all passengers and crew members have been safely evacuated. Rear Adm. Richard Gurnon, president of the Massachusetts Maritime Academy called Schettino's actions "abhorrent" and a violation of an unwritten code. that after a series of freak waves slammed against the ship, the pipe's shell plating burst open and began filling the compartment with seawater. And the second boat was only cooks. Maritime experts said the tradition of a captain standing by his ship isn't established in international maritime law. The MV Oceanos was a 153 meter passenger ship, built in 1952 and designed to carry 550 passengers and 250 crew. Fourth Officer Joseph G. Boxhall made a quick inspection of the ship and returned to the bridge to report that he had found no damage. Once complete, the team focused on preparing for the dives. I am the captain. No matter what time I leave. At this stage, eyewitness accounts reveal that many of the crew, including Captain Avranas, were already packed and ready to depart. Authorities isolated officers and sailors at a hotel. As in August, throughout the two-week period of the expedition, they only managed to reach the wreck on two occasions with a maximum bottom time of eight minutes. Such callous words were spoken by Yiannis Avranas, captain of the Greek luxury liner Oceanos, which sank off the coast of South Africa in 1991. Bubbles moved toward the stern and then back again to amidships. The Greatest Maritime Rescue Ever? The MV Oceanos Rescue - Bowmans All considered, said Canadian-American fellow team member and cave diving world record holder Paul Heinerth, the Oceanos is probably one of the most, if not the most difficult wreck in the world to dive. The difficulties of diving on the Oceanos are extreme, but with commitment and proper planning, the dive is not impossible. All 571 people on board were saved, following one of the worlds most dramatic and successful rescue operations of its kind. A little more than an hour after impact, the crew began to evacuate the ship. On 3 August 1991, the Oceanos - initially delayed due to a bomb threat - set out from East London, South Africa and headed for Durban.Captain Yiannis Avranas (born ca. When his "death-glorious ship" sinks, Ahab mourns that he's been denied the "pride" of having gone down with her. Schettino should have remained on board "until the last passenger is accounted for," said Abelardo Pacheco, a Filipino captain who was held hostage for five months in Somalia and now heads a seafarers' training center in Manila. By Philip G Van Rensburg. Francesco Schettino had handed himself in to the Rebibbia prison in Rome after the verdict, his lawyer said. Photographs, some taken by survivors, document the cruise ship sinking off Southern Africa's eastern coast in August 1991. I have made a mess and practically the whole ship is flooding, Schettino told Ferrarini while the ship was sinking. Diesel, emanating from the wreck for nearly 12 years, was visible around the marker buoy an indication that the entire water column lay still. It's shameful. One of the divers, Karl van der Merwe, commented, The current was so strong that it would rip your mask off your face and your regulator out of your mouth. May she rest in peace and be as kind to those that follow this great accomplishment. And he did not lighten his position after the accident when he told a foreign television station: The ships abandonment applies to everyone. It was owned by Epirotiki Lines of Greece and chartered at the time by a South African company, TFC Tours. 19952023, The Independent Traveler, Inc. Captain Yiannis Avranas who left passengers to die? In 1994, his English wife Davina published a book about . The incident came two years after Francesco Schettino, the captain of the wrecked cruise ship Costa Concordia, was charged with manslaughter and abandoning ship charges he denies. The Worst Christmas Story Ever: The Sinking of SS Leopoldville on 24 December 1944, How AI is Transforming Personal and Professional Investing, Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning, UC Berkeleys Financial Innovation Conference, Why did Titanic Sink : A Scientific Analysis. The dive was aborted for the day. They were taken from the hotel to the airport five minutes before the plane left, otherwise we would still be there judging us , says Nikolaou. Powered by Invision Community. The crew said that likely saved their lives, because the ship's emergency beacon didn't work. The Costa Concordia ran aground off the Italian coast in 2012, killing 32 people. "Shoreside rescue people can do all the shoreside coordination efforts needed," he said. The World witnessed an ugly scene back on 03 August 1991 when MTS Oceanos sunk in 1991 because of uncontrolled floods. Passengers thought the captain had left the ship. The ship ran aground off the Italian coast in 2012, killing 32 people. Cowardice comes in many forms, but there's a special sense of shame reserved for captains who abandon ship. Five divers, including the late Rehan Bouwer, made four attempts to reach the Oceanos, but only succeeded twice, and then only for a matter of minutes. Follow her on Twitter at @MsBeckyLittle. [4] Boltman told a newspaper: "Later in the morning, Captain Avarnasi (sic) even contacted me from shore to ask how things were going. [16] A South African Navy Diver testified that the captain had insisted on being taken ashore by the first helicopter. The Oceanos thrust her stern into the air and slid nose first into the sea. Several estimated it was no more than five miles away. He said the export to the electric generators had been opened by a surge and water was pouring in.