The biggest disaster on the water. The biggest shipwrecks

And today, sailing remains a dangerous occupation. Before the sea element, even a person armed with technology is helpless. History knows a lot of cases when ships, together with the crews, disappeared into the sea without a trace. We have collected the 10 most mysterious shipwrecks, the causes of which remain a mystery to this day.

1. USS Wasp - missing escort

In fact, there were several ships that were called USS Wasp, but the strangest was the Wasp, which disappeared in 1814. Built in 1813 for the war with England, the Wasp was a fast square-sail sloop with 22 guns and a crew of 170 men. Wasp participated in 13 successful operations. On September 22, 1814, the ship captured the British merchant brig Atalanta. As a rule, the Wasp crew simply burned enemy ships, but Atalanta was deemed too valuable to destroy. As a result, an order was received to escort Atalanta to the allied harbor, and Wasp set off to the side caribbean. He was never seen again.

2. SS Marine Sulfur Queen - Sacrifice bermuda triangle

This vessel was a 160m tanker originally used to transport oil during World War II. The ship was later rebuilt to carry molten sulfur. Marine Sulfur Queen was in excellent condition. In February 1963, two days after leaving Texas with a cargo of sulfur, a conventional radio message was received from the ship saying that everything was in order. After that, the ship disappeared. Many assume that it just exploded, while others blame the "magic" of the Bermuda Triangle for the disappearance. The bodies of 39 crew members were not found, although a life jacket was found, and a piece of board with a piece of the inscription "arine SULPH".

3. USS Porpoise - killed in a typhoon

Built in the golden age of sailing, the Porpoise was originally known as the "hermaphrodite brig" because its two masts used two different types of sail. She was later converted to a traditional brigantine with square sails on both masts. At first, the ship was used to pursue pirates, and in 1838 it was sent on an exploratory expedition. The team managed to trip around the world and confirm the existence of Antarctica. After exploring a number of islands in the southern part Pacific Ocean Porpoise sailed from China in September 1854 and was never heard from again. It is likely that the crew encountered a typhoon, but there is no evidence of this.

4. FV Andrea Gail - a victim of the "perfect storm"

The fishing trawler Andrea Gai was built in Florida in 1978 and was subsequently acquired by a company in Massachusetts. With a crew of six, Andrea Gail sailed successfully for 13 years and disappeared on a voyage to Newfoundland. The Coast Guard launched a search, but could only find the ship's emergency beacon and a few pieces of wreckage. After a week of searching, the ship and its crew were declared missing. Andrea Gail is believed to have been doomed when a high-pressure front crashed into a massive area of low-pressure air, and then the nascent typhoon merged with the remnants of Hurricane Grace. This rare combination of three separate weather systems eventually became known as the "perfect storm". According to experts, Andrea Gail could have encountered waves with a height of more than 30 meters

5. SS Poet - a ship that did not send a distress signal

At first, this ship was called Omar Bundy and was used to transport troops during the Second World War. It was later used to transport steel. In 1979, the ship was purchased by the Hawaiian Eugenia Corporation of Hawaii, which named it Poet. In 1979, a ship left Philadelphia for Port Said with a cargo of 13,500 tons of corn, but never made it to its destination. The last communication with Poet happened just six hours after leaving the port of Philadelphia, when one of the crew members spoke to his wife. After that, the ship did not reach the scheduled 48-hour communication session, while the ship did not send a distress signal. Eugenia Corporation did not report the loss of the ship for six days, and the Coast Guard did not respond for another 5 days after that. No trace of the ship was ever found.

6. USS Conestoga - the missing minesweeper

USS Conestoga was built in 1917 as a minesweeper. After the end of the First World War, it was converted into a tugboat. In 1921, she was transferred to American Samoa, where she was to become a floating station. March 25, 1921 the ship set sail, and nothing more is known about it.

7. Witchcraft - the pleasure boat that went missing on Christmas

In December 1967, Miami hotel owner Dan Burak decided to watch the city's Christmas lights from his personal luxury boat, the Witchcraft. Accompanied by his father Patrick Hogan, he went to sea for about 1.5 km. It is known that the boat was in perfect order. At about 9 pm, Burak radioed for a tow back to the pier, saying that his boat had hit unknown object. He confirmed his coordinates to the Coast Guard and specified that he would launch a flare. Rescuers got to the scene in 20 minutes, but Witchcraft disappeared. The Coast Guard combed over 3,100 square kilometers of the ocean, but neither Dan Burak, nor Patrick Hogan, nor Witchcraft were ever found.

8. USS Insurgent: mysterious disappearance warship

The US Navy frigate Insurgent was captured by the Americans in a battle with the French in 1799. The ship served in Caribbean, where he held many glorious victories. But on August 8, 1800, the ship sailed out of Virginia Hampton Roads and mysteriously disappeared.

9. SS Awahou: lifeboats didn't help

Built in 1912, 44 meters cargo steamer Awahou went through many owners before eventually being bought by the Australian Carr Shipping & Trading Company. On September 8, 1952, the ship sailed from Sydney with a crew of 18 and set off for private island Lord Howe. The ship was in good shape when she left Australia, but within 48 hours a fuzzy, "crunchy" radio signal was received from the ship. The speech was almost unintelligible, but it looked like Awahou was caught in bad weather. Although the ship had enough lifeboats for the entire crew, no signs of the wreck or bodies were found.

10. SS Baychimo - arctic ghost ship

Some call it a ghost ship, but Baychimo was actually a real ship. Built in 1911, Baychimo was a huge steam cargo ship owned by Hudson's Bay Company. It was mainly used to transport furs from northern Canada, and Baychimo's first nine flights were relatively quiet. But during last flight ship in 1931, winter came very early. Completely unprepared for bad weather, the ship was trapped in the ice. Most of the crew were rescued by plane, but the captain and a few Baychimo crew members decided to wait out the bad weather by camping on the ship. A severe snowstorm began, which completely hid the ship from sight. When the storm subsided, Baychimo disappeared. However, over the course of several decades, Baychimo has allegedly been sighted aimlessly in Arctic waters more than once.

For hundreds of years of sailing on various ships, sailboats and barges across the expanses of the seas and oceans, there have been many kinds of accidents and shipwrecks. Films have even been made about some of them, the most popular of which, of course, is the Titanic. But which shipwrecks were the largest in terms of the size of the ship and the number of victims? In this ranking, we answer this question by presenting the biggest maritime disasters.

11

The rating opens with a British passenger liner that was torpedoed by the German submarine U-20 on May 7, 1915, in a zone designated by the Kaiser government as a zone of submarine warfare. The ship, sailing with a painted over name and not raising any flag above it, sank in 18 minutes, 13 kilometers from the coast of Ireland. 1198 people died out of 1959 who were on board. The destruction of this ship set public opinion in many countries against Germany and contributed to the entry of the United States into the First world war two years later.

10

Single-screw steamer, had a capacity of 7142 register tons, a length of 132 meters, a beam of 17 meters, a maximum speed of 11 knots. On April 12, 1944, a steamship with explosives with a total mass of more than 1,500 tons stood up for unloading at the pier of the port of Bombay. There were other cargoes on board - 8,700 tons of cotton, 128 ingots of gold, sulfur, wood, engine oil, etc. The ship was loaded in violation of safety regulations. At about 2 p.m. a fire broke out on board, and no actions contributed to its elimination. At 16:06 there was an explosion, which generated a tidal wave of such force that the Jalampada ship, with a displacement of almost 4,000 tons, ended up on the roof of a 17-meter warehouse. After 34 min. there was a second explosion.

Burning cotton scattered within a radius of 900 meters from the epicenter and set fire to everything: ships, warehouses, houses. Strong wind from the sea drove a wall of fire on the city. The fires were extinguished only after 2 weeks. It took about 7 months to restore the port. Official statistics announced 1376 deaths, 2408 people were admitted to hospitals. The fire destroyed 55,000 tons of grain, thousands of tons of seeds, oil, oil; a huge amount of military equipment and almost one square mile of city blocks. 6 thousand firms went bankrupt, 50 thousand people lost their jobs. Many small and 4 large ships, dozens were destroyed.

9

It was with this ship that the most famous disaster on the water. The British White Star Line steamer was the second of three Olympic-class twin steamers and the largest passenger liner in the world at the time of construction. Gross tonnage 46,328 register tons, displacement 66,000 tons. The ship is 269 meters long, 28 meters wide and 52 meters high. The engine room had 29 boilers and 159 coal fireboxes. Max speed 25 knots. On its maiden voyage on April 14, 1912, it collided with an iceberg and sank 2 hours and 40 minutes later. There were 2224 people on board. Of these, 711 people were saved, 1513 died. The Titanic disaster became legendary, several feature films were shot based on its plot.

8

in the harbor Canadian city Halifax On December 6, 1917, the French military cargo ship Mont Blanc, which was fully loaded with one explosive - TNT, pyroxylin and picric acid, collided with the Norwegian ship Imo. As a result of the strongest explosion, the port and a significant part of the city were completely destroyed. About 2,000 people died as a result of an explosion under the rubble of buildings and because of the fires that arose after the explosion. Approximately 9,000 people were injured, 400 people lost their sight. The explosion in Halifax is one of the strongest explosions arranged by mankind, this explosion is considered the most powerful explosion of the pre-nuclear era.

7

This French auxiliary cruiser served as a flagship and participated in the neutralization of the Greek fleet. Displacement - 25,000 tons, length - 166 meters, width - 27 meters, power - 29,000 horsepower, speed - 20 knots, cruising range - 4,700 miles at 10 knots. She sank in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Greece on February 26, 1916 after a torpedo attack by the German submarine U-35. Of the 4,000 people on board, 3,130 died, 870 escaped.

6

After 1944, this German passenger ocean liner was converted into a floating hospital, participated in the evacuation of mostly wounded soldiers and refugees from East Prussia from the advancing Red Army. The liner left the port of Pillau on February 9, 1945 and headed for Kiel, there were more than 4,000 people on board - wounded military personnel, soldiers, refugees, medical staff and crew members. On the night of February 10 at 00:55, the Soviet submarine S-13 torpedoed the liner with two torpedoes. The ship sank 15 minutes later, killing 3,608 and saving 659 people. When the liner was torpedoed, the submarine commander was convinced that in front of him was not a passenger liner, but a military cruiser.

5

Registered in the Philippines passenger ferry The Doña Paz sank on December 20, 1987 at about 10 p.m. near the island of Marinduque after a collision with the tanker Vektor. Approximately 4,375 people died in the process, making this the largest maritime disaster in peacetime.

4

This passenger-cargo ship of the "Adzharia" type was built at the Baltic Shipyard in Leningrad in 1928, and on November 7, 1941, it was sunk by the Germans near the Crimean coast. The death toll was, according to various estimates, from 3,000 to 4,500 people. On the ship were several thousand wounded soldiers and evacuated citizens, including the staff of 23 military and civilian hospitals, the leadership of the pioneer camp and part of the party leadership of the Crimea. The loading of the evacuees was in a hurry, and their exact number is not known. There is a version that the cause of this maritime disaster was the criminal mistakes of the Black Sea Fleet command. The crowded motor ship, instead of making the transition to the Caucasian, was sent by the command to Yalta.

3

A cargo ship built in Oslo, Norway, launched on 4 April 1940. It was confiscated by the Germans after Norway was occupied by Germany. At first it was used as a conditional target for training the crews of German submarines. Later, the ship took part in the evacuation of people by sea from the advancing Red Army. It was armed with cannons. This ship managed to make four trips, in which 19,785 people were evacuated. On the night of April 16, 1945, the ship making the fifth trip was torpedoed by the Soviet submarine L-3, after which the Goya sank in the Baltic Sea. More than 6,900 people died in the disaster.

2

On May 3, 1945, a tragedy occurred in the Baltic Sea, the victims of which were approximately 8,000 people. The German liner "Cap Arkona" and the cargo ship "Tilbek", transporting prisoners from the evacuating concentration camps, were fired upon by British aircraft. As a result, more than 5,000 people died on the Cap Arkon, and about 2,800 on the Tilbeck. According to one version, this raid was a mistake on the part of the British Air Force, who believed that German troops were on the ships, according to another, the pilots were ordered to destroy everything enemy ships in the area.

1

The most on the water happened with this German passenger liner, which since 1940 has been converted into a floating hospital. During the Second World War, it was used as an infirmary, a hostel for the 2nd training brigade of submariners. The death of the ship, torpedoed on January 30, 1945 by the Soviet submarine S-13 under the command of A. I. Marinesko, is considered biggest disaster V maritime history- according to some historians, the real losses could be more than 9,000 people.

At 21:16 the first torpedo hit the bow of the ship, later the second blew up the empty pool where the women of the naval auxiliary battalion were, and the last one hit the engine room. With the joint efforts of the crew and passengers, some lifeboats were launched, and yet there were many people in the icy water. From the strong roll of the ship, an anti-aircraft gun came off the deck and crushed one of the boats full of people. About an hour after the attack, the Wilhelm Gustloff completely sank.

The history of shipbuilding and sailing on various watercraft dates back several millennia. People sailed on boats, sailboats, nuclear icebreakers. During this time, there have been many shipwrecks, most often due to the human factor. Some shipwrecks were large, with thousands dead and injured.

The largest disasters by the number of victims

Conventionally, the largest shipwrecks can be divided into two groups and the ratings can be derived by the number of dead and the size of the ships.

Many of the top ten largest crashes occurred during wartime as a result of combat operations. The ranking by death toll is as follows:

11th place - "Louisitania"

One of the largest English passenger liners, which died at the beginning of the First World War. The ship, which at that time had no identification marks, was torpedoed German submarine and sank within 18 minutes. Nearly 1200 people died. It is believed that the destruction of the liner provoked a change in public opinion against Kaiser Germany and was one of the reasons for the US entry into the war.

10th place - "Fort Stykin"

The steamer has an official capacity of 7142 tons. At the time of the crash, there were about 1,500 tons of explosives in the holds and about 10,000 tons of other cargo, including 8,700 tons of cotton. Safety precautions when loading the ship were violated. At 2 pm on April 12, 1944, a fire started, but it was not possible to stop it. As a result, the fire reached the hold with explosives and several powerful explosions. The main consequences were from the burning cotton scattered over a distance of a kilometer, which set fire to many houses, ships, warehouses. According to official statistics alone, there were 1376 dead. The strength of the explosion can be judged by the fact that the resulting tidal wave carried the ship, which was not far from the steamer and had a displacement of about 4000 tons, to a height of 17 meters.

9th place - "Titanic"

The wreck of this ship went down in history and became a symbol of the largest shipwrecks; one of the best films about the Titanic disasters, beloved by many, was shot about it. A total of three ships of this class were produced. At the time of construction, it was the largest passenger liner in the world. Length - almost 270 meters, width - 28. The ship died as a result of a collision with a large iceberg in the first big cruise. At the time of the crash, there were 2,224 people on board, including passengers and crew members. It is reliably known that only 711 people were saved, the bodies of many of the dead were not found.

8th place - "Imo" and "Mont Blanc"

The crash happened in 1917. Mont Blanc - large French cargo Ship, loaded with several types of explosives. In the Canadian harbor adjacent to the city of Halifax, this ship collided with the Norwegian ship Imo. The explosion that followed the collision is considered the most powerful in the entire pre-nuclear era. The port and part of the city were completely destroyed, total number The death toll from the explosion itself and its consequences reached 2,000. About 9,000 more were injured of varying severity.

7th place - Provence

Flagship French ship that neutralized the Greek fleet. One of the largest auxiliary cruisers of its time. Sunk after being hit by a German torpedo in February 1916. About 4 thousand people were on board, 3130 of them died.

6th place - "General Steuben"

A large German passenger liner, converted into a floating hospital during the war. In 1945 he carried out the evacuation from East Prussia from the Soviet troops. Torpedoed on February 10, 1945. According to the statements of the commander of the boat that torpedoed the liner, he was sure that this was a large military cruiser. More than 3600 people died.

5th place - Tanker "Vector" and ferry "Dona Paz"

The largest shipwreck that occurred in peacetime. In December 1987, a Philippine ferry collided with a tanker. As a result, about 4,400 people died.

4th place - "Armenia"

Soviet ship, sunk in 1941 by the German Air Force near the Crimean coast. The number of dead is not known exactly, according to various sources - from 3 to 5 thousand people.

3rd place - "Goya"

Norwegian ship confiscated by the Germans. In 1945, she carried out the sea evacuation of people from the Red Army. On April 16, the ship was torpedoed by a Soviet submarine and sank. The estimated death toll is over 6,000.

2nd place - "Tilbek" and "Cap Arkona"

Two German ships that died as a result of a British air strike in May 1945. The approximate death toll is 8 thousand people, mostly prisoners of concentration camps to be evacuated. The exact reasons for the air raid remain unknown.

1st place - "Wilhelm Gustlov"

Record holder for the number of human casualties in known maritime history. In the first half of the 40s, it was used by the German armed forces as a floating hospital. In January 1945 the ship was torpedoed by a Soviet submarine. According to researchers, the death toll exceeded 9 thousand people.

Major cargo ship disasters

To this day, the sinking of the Amoco tanker Cadiz remains one of the biggest oil disasters. Not far from the British coast, the tanker ran aground and broke in two. This resulted in a spill of more than one and a half million barrels of oil.

Among other wrecks of large ships, incidents with container ships can be separately noted. These are one of the largest ships in the world, carrying multi-ton cargo, and each such disaster leads to billions in losses. So, in June 2013, one of the largest container ships– Mol Comfort with 2400 containers on board. The specific value of the cargo is unknown, claims against insurers amounted to about $400 million. A year and a half after the shipwreck, and some time after the completion of the investigation, the insurance companies filed a lawsuit on the grounds that the disaster was caused by problems in the ship's design itself.

Among common causes that cause crashes, there are several:

Combat operations, including terrorist attacks.
Human factor - insufficient crew experience, etc.
Other factors: violation of safety regulations, improper distribution of cargo, leading to deformation, exceeding the maximum permissible load of the vessel, etc.

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The largest and most famous civilian maritime disasters that claimed the lives of people:

26/27 July 2009: A boat loaded with Haitian migrants capsized near the Turks and Caicos Islands. The police found 11 bodies, 70 people were declared missing.

March 29, 2009: A wooden boat full of migrants to Europe from Libya capsized in the Mediterranean. All 237 passengers, most of them African migrants, drowned.

June 21, 2008: The ferry Princess of the Stars, owned by Philippine company Sulpicio Lines, suddenly lists and capsizes off the coast of the Philippines during Typhoon Fengshen. More than 800 people died.

February 3, 2006: after a fire en route from Saudi Arabia More than 1,000 people drowned in the Egyptian port of Safaga.

September 26, 2002: A Senegalese ferry capsized in a storm off the Gambian coast in West Africa killing 1800 people.

21 May 1996: Ferry sank in Lake Victoria at East Africa over 800 people died.

28 September 1994: The ferry Estonia sank during a storm in the Baltic Sea en route from Tallinn to Stockholm, killing 852 people. Most of the passengers were Scandinavians, while most of the teams were Estonians.

16 February 1993: An overloaded ferry sank between Jeremy and Port-au-Prince, Haiti, with a death toll estimated at 500-700.

August 31, 1986: Soviet steamship"Admiral Nakhimov", built in 1925, collided with the merchant ship "Pyotr Vasaev" and sank at 23:20 on August 31, 1986 abeam Cape Doob, Black Sea, at a depth of 47 meters and is on the ground to this day. Of the 1234 people (according to official figures), 423 people died, about 64 people still remain inside the ship's hull.

May 25, 1986: About 600 people die when a ferry sinks on the Meghna River in Bangladesh.

January 27, 1981: 580 people died when the Indonesian passenger ship Tamponas II caught fire and sank in the Java Sea.

July 25, 1956: Two passenger liner Andrea Doria and Stockholm collided off Massachusetts, sinking Andrea Doria, killing 46 of 1,706 passengers and crew.

7 May 1915: British Ocean liner Lusitania was torpedoed and scuttled by a German submarine while crossing the Atlantic Ocean, 18 minutes from Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland. 1,195 of the 1,959 people on board died. This sinking turned public opinion in many countries against Germany and was in fact the event that brought the US into World War I. This event is considered the second most famous civil disaster at sea, after the sinking of the Titanic.

May 29, 1914: A Canadian Pacific steamer, the Empress of Ireland, collided with the Norwegian freighter SS Storstad near Quebec while passing through the St. Lawrence River during fog. The ship's captain had just been promoted to this post, and this was his first voyage in this capacity. The critically damaged vessel sank within 14 minutes. The disaster claimed the lives of 1,012 of the 1,477 passengers, making it the most tragic maritime disaster in Canadian history.

April 12, 1912: The Titanic, the world's largest passenger steamer of the time, collided with an iceberg on its maiden voyage. Atlantic Ocean and sank within 2 hours and 40 minutes. As a result of the disaster, 1,517 people died, making this collision one of the deadliest in the history of peacetime maritime disasters. Such a high mortality rate is attributed to the fact that despite meeting the regulations of the time, the ship did not have enough lifeboats for all passengers. The number of seats in the lifeboats was 1,178, while there were 3,547 people on board. A disproportionate number of men died because of the "women and children first" rule that was enforced.