MS Express Samina - Disaster

Disaster

In the evening on Tuesday 26 September 2000 MS Express Samina hit the Portes islets off the bay of Parikia, Paros and sunk near there at 23:02 resulting in the deaths of 82 people from a total of 473 passengers and 61 crew members. The fact that some of the crew did not help the passengers evacuate the sinking ferry contributed to the death toll.

The crew placed the ship on autopilot and did not have a crew member watch the ship. Even with autopilot standard practice calls for one crew member to watch the controls, for example to avoid collisions with other vessels. The crew deployed the fin stabilizers system to decrease the motions in bad weather; normally both stabilizer fins deployed, but in this case the port stabilizer fin did not deploy. This caused the ship to drift and therefore not travel in a straight line. A crew member discovered the problem and, at the last minute, tried to steer the ship to port. This action occurred too late. At 10:12 P.M. the ship struck the east face of the taller Portes pinnacle. The rocks tore a six-meter long and one-meter wide hole above the water line. After that impact, the rocks bent the stabilizer fin backwards, and the fin cut through the hull through the side, below the waterline, and next to the engine room. The water from the three-meter gash destroyed the main generators and ended electrical power. Professor David Molyneaux, a ship safety expert, said that the damage sustained by the MS Express Samina should not normally sink such a ship. The ship sank because nine of the ship's eleven watertight compartment doors were open when safety laws require ship operators to close and lock the safety doors. The water spread beyond the engine room, and due to a lack of power the operators could not remotely shut the doors. Molyneaux described the open watertight doors as the most significant aspect of the sinking.