Belgian service marks Zeebrugge ferry disaster 30 years on

[whole diary]

[Chris from Nailsea]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

Belgian service marks Zeebrugge ferry disaster 30 years on


The accident caused the deaths of 193 passengers and crew members

Survivors of the Zeebrugge ferry disaster have attended a church service in Belgium to mark the 30th anniversary of the sinking of the vessel.

They gathered with victims' relatives and rescue workers for a service in the Belgian port close to place where the Herald of Free Enterprise capsized on 6 March 1987.

The accident caused 193 deaths among the passengers and crew.

The church service was followed by a wreath-laying ceremony.


Kim Spooner lost her aunt and uncle on the ship

It was attended by Kim Spooner, who was eight when her aunt Mary Smith, 44, and uncle Neil Spooner, 37, died aboard the Townsend Thoresen roll-on roll-off British-flagged ferry.  She said: "I remember waiting up all night to see if they would ring to say that they were OK, and of course the call never came."


A service has been held at the Belgian port

Rene Tytgat, a senior nursing officer at the time, remembers wondering if it was true. He said: "A ship, such a big ship, which capsized in front of the harbour - that was unbelievable, but it happened."

Testimony from one of the survivors who was 16 at the time was read out by the Reverend Alexander Eberson, chaplain of the Port of Zeebrugge. It said: "I thought that I was going to perish there, in that ship."


The ship capsized just off the coast

After the disaster, a public inquiry confirmed the ferry had left with its bow doors open, allowing water to flood the car deck, and the crew member responsible for closing them was asleep at the time.

Townsend Thoresen, which later became P&O European Ferries, was severely criticised in the inquiry report. And in October 1987, an inquest jury returned verdicts of unlawful killing.

Three years later, a manslaughter trial of eight defendants, including the company, collapsed. International ferry safety regulations were tightened after the sinking.

Families affected by the disaster will gather at a church service on Dover on Monday.


Memories of the disaster were read out at the service

[Oxonhutch]

I could have been on that ship – we learned of its sinking as we departed its sister ship having arrived back in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) from Cherbourg.  The guy next to us on the car deck said to us “turn your radio on”. But we didn’t get any reception until the bow doors opened and we learned of the full scale of the disaster. My grandparents we convinced we were all killed until we turned up the next day – pre mobile phone era.

At the time I was living in South Africa and was visiting my parents on holiday.  They had shares in Townsend Thoresen as it gave them cheap channel crossings with their caravan. During that week they suggested a short continental holiday and they asked whether I would like France or Holland/Belgium – they had two ships.  I chose French rather than Dutch as I had heard enough of that in South Africa.  The crossing dates were fixed. Unbeknown, I had made the best choice.

On reflection we concluded that dad and I would probably have survived – mum not. We left Cherbourg in foul weather, dad and I at the ship’s rail leaving port in our normal manner, observing our departure as we always did despite the wind and rain.  Mum was down below in the lounge keeping warm like most sensible people.

Can hardly believe it was thirty years ago.

[ChrisB]

Interestingly/oddly, I understand that a UK^▸ (United Kingdom) remembrance is taking place today, rather than at the same time  as this one....

[stuving]

Interestingly/oddly, I understand that a UK^▸ (United Kingdom) remembrance is taking place today, rather than at the same time  as this one....

So people can attend both?

[stuving]

There was another item on BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) local news at the weekend, about this:

Sutton Wick air crash, 60 years on

5 March 2017 Last updated at 00:08 GMT

A Blackburn Beverley aircraft crashed in Sutton Wick, now in Oxfordshire, on 5 March 1957.

The crash killed 15 members of the RAF^▸ (Royal Air Force), two civilians (on the ground) and a number of police dogs.

Another man, badly burned in the accident, later killed himself.

I'd not heard of that before, and I think it must be off the beginning of the kind of "cuttings library" that gets searched when a new news item comes in. Zeebrugge is certainly in that library, but another one that is too old or too foreign is the sinking of the Skagerrak on 7 September 1966.

That's my near miss - I'd crossed from Norway to Denmark in August with a school party. It was pretty shocking to realise that a ship like that could be lost in a summer storm.

This was a brand new merry-go-round ferry, with a door/ramp at the stern only, but it foundered in a storm bad enough to batter in that door. Despite that, only one or two died*, and 98 passengers and 46 crew were rescued, which probably explains why it is not well-known. Most were picked up by Danish Air Force Sikorsky S61-As (our Sea Kings), also new in service, so this was notable as one of the first successful offshore mass rescues.

*Reports disagree, and there is some uncertainty about the manifest.

[4064ReadingAbbey]

I was living and working in Belgium at the time. The company was a joint venture between a UK^▸ (United Kingdom) consulting company and a Belgium finance house - as result there was a lot of travel between the Belgium offices and the UK offices near Cambridge.

On the morning of the disaster we had a roll call to see if anyone was likely to have been on that ship - and there was sigh of relief when all were accounted for.

A few months later I used the ferry between Breskens and Vlissingen to visit a client in the Netherlands and saw the wreck in the dry dock there. Viewed directly from astern it could be seen that the whole superstructure had been bent sideways by the impact.

It must have been terrifying.

[TonyK]

It must have been terrifying.

At the time I thought it didn't bear thinking about. I still do. It must have been truly awful, even for those who got out relatively unscathed.

[grahame]

RMT^▸ (National Union of Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers) - remembering that the "M" stands for Marine Maritime, remind us of this tragedy today - (link)

Maritime union, RMT today remembers the 193 crew and passengers who lost their lives in waters off Zeebrugge on 6th March 1987 when the Herald of Free Enterprise capsized.

National Secretary Darren Procter will pay tribute to those who were lost in the tragedy at a memorial in Dover today.

Edit - M stands for ‘maritime’, not ‘marine’ - Red Squirrel