Escape News

In 2018, convicted cocaine trafficker Slobodan Kostovski fled a Brazilian prison and made his way back to Europe with a fake passport.The Serbian senior quickly fell into old habits, police allege. Last August, Kostovski was arrested in Belgrade, accused of shipping 2.7 metric tonnes of cocaine from Brazil aboard a 22-meter vessel apprehended near Spain’s Canary Islands.Nicknamed “the General” by his associates, he had been trafficking “large amounts” of powder to “Europe for a long period of time,” Serbian police wrote in a 2022 intelligence report obtained exclusively by Reuters.

The cargo ship Dali knocked down three main truss spans, constructed with connected steel elements forming triangles, on the Francis Scott Key Bridge just seconds after crashing into one of the bridge piers early on Tuesday morning, March 26, 2024.The bridge collapse happened so fast that it left little time for the work crews on the bridge to escape. Civil engineers like me have been paying attention to this disaster, because we want to find ways to make infrastructure like these large bridges more resilient. For a bridge this large to collapse would require a catastrophic collision force.

We think of Bermuda as a tiny paradise in the North Atlantic. But long before cruise ships moored up, prison ships carried hundreds of convicts to the island, first docking in 1824 and remaining there for decades.Islands have long been places to deport, exile and banish criminals. Think of Alcatraz, the infamous penitentiary in San Francisco, or Robben Island in South Africa, which held Nelson Mandela. The French penal colony Devil’s Island was immortalised in the Steve McQueen film Papillon…

DNV has teamed up with Ocean Sovereign to obtain French registration for the deployment of a unique fish farming superyacht.Ocean Ark’s patented advanced self-cleaning trimaran superstructure was developed by Ocean Sovereign according to MARPOL, SOLAS and IMO regulations. The vessel is designed to operate in high offshore waters, drifting with the natural current and natural fish shoals. The mobile nature of Ocean Ark will help to ensure the health and welfare of the fish and…

Police from two countries in the eastern Caribbean are investigating the possible murder of two people believed to be U.S. citizens who owned a catamaran that was hijacked by three fugitives in the waters off the island of Grenada.The yacht's alleged owners, Kathy Brandel and Ralph Hendry, were last seen Sunday night, when three men escaped from the custody of Grenadian authorities. Police in St. Vincent and the Grenadines captured the men on Wednesday.The Royal Grenada Police…

Spanish police seized eight tonnes of cocaine from Suriname hidden in a container disguised as a power generator in the southern port of Algeciras, tax authorities said on Monday.The haul of cocaine, one of the largest ever intercepted in Spain, was inside a metal structure designed to escape detection from scanners.But customs agents detected a large quantity of stacked goods that practically filled the container, so they forced it open.The drug smugglers had planned a route designed to make the discovery of the cargo's true contents as difficult as possible.

The world's largest cruise ship is set for its maiden voyage on Saturday, but environmental groups are concerned that the liquefied natural gas-powered vessel - and other giant cruise liners to follow - will leak harmful methane into the atmosphere.Royal Caribbean International's Icon of the Seas sets sail from Miami with capacity for 8,000 passengers across 20 decks, taking advantage of the surging popularity of cruises.The ship is built to run on liquefied natural gas (LNG), which burns more cleanly than traditional marine fuel but poses greater risks for methane emissions.

Houthi rebel drone attacks on vessels traversing the Red Sea and Suez Canal route, accounting for 10% of global trade, have exposed the shortcomings of current ship alert systems.The unpredictability and increased frequency of these attacks have created a challenging security environment for ships passing the area via the Bab el Mandeb strait, posing a substantial risk to seafarers and maritime trade by endangering the safety of the crew and cargo.Initially focused on Israel-related ships in solidarity with Hamas…

An attempted hijacking of a commercial vessel in the Gulf of Aden on Sunday appears to have been carried out by armed Somali pirates and not Yemeni Houthis, despite the firing of missiles from Houthi-controlled territory in Yemen afterwards, the Pentagon said on Monday."We're continuing to assess, but initial indications are that these five individuals are Somali," said Pentagon spokesperson Brigadier General Patrick Ryder."Clearly a piracy related incident," Ryder added.A U.S. Navy warship responded to a distress call on Sunday from the chemical tanker Central Park.

A U.S. Navy warship responded to a distress call from a commercial tanker in the Gulf of Aden that had been seized by armed individuals and is now safe, U.S. officials said on Sunday.The tanker, which had been carrying a cargo of phosphoric acid, was identified as the Central Park by the vessel's company. The officials did not identify the attackers.In a statement, the U.S. military said the USS Mason, with help from allied ships, demanded that the commercial ship be released by the attackers. Five armed individuals tried to escape on a fast boat but were chased by the U.S.

Secretary of the Navy (SECNAV) Carlos Del Toro announced that a future John Lewis-class oiler, T-AO 205-class, will be named after American abolitionist and social activist Harriet Tubman.SECNAV Del Toro made the announcement during an Emancipation Celebration at Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center in Church Creek, Md. National Park Service Director Chuck Sams, who is also a U.S. Navy veteran, joined Secretary Del Toro for the announcement at the park.The future…

The US Coast Guard has issued an interim final rule on mandated requirements for DUKW amphibious passenger vessels and requested comments.The statutory mandate was enacted after the sinking of the Stretch Duck 7 on July 19, 2018, which resulted in the loss of 17 lives on Table Rock Lake, Missouri.More than seven hours prior to the accident, the National Weather Service had issued a severe thunderstorm watch for the area, followed by a severe thunderstorm warning a minute before the vessel departed the passenger boarding facility.

David Clark Company is best known within the marine market for its wireless and digital headset workboat crew communication systems – the Series 9900 Wireless Marine Headset System and the Series 9100 Digital Marine Headset System. The company has over 20 years of experience designing and manufacturing boat crew communication solutions for a variety of workboats, e.g., patrol boats, fire/rescue craft, and offshore service vessels.But you may not know that David Clark Company started…

The UK Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) has published its accident investigation report into the fatal engine room fire on board Moritz Schulte on August 4, 2020, citing training issues.On 4 August 2020, a fire broke out in the engine room of the liquefied petroleum gas/ethylene carrier Moritz Schulte when the recently promoted third engineer opened an auxiliary engine’s pressurised fuel filter allowing marine gas oil to spray onto an adjacent auxiliary engine’s hot…

Japanese ship leasing company Shoei Kisen Kaisha, the owner of car carrier Fremantle Highway, which caught fire off the Dutch coast last week, said on Friday it will investigate the cause of the incident in cooperation with relevant parties.The blaze broke out on July 26, killing one crew member and injured seven who jumped overboard to escape the flames. Local officials said the carrier arrived at the northern Dutch port of Eemshaven for salvage on Thursday.

A burned-out car carrier off the Dutch coast is being towed to port for salvage, Dutch authorities said on Thursday.The Fremantle Highway, which was travelling from Germany to Egypt when the blaze broke out on July 26, will be towed from its current location north of the islands Ameland and Schiermonnikoog to nearby harbour Eemshaven, the Dutch public works and water management ministry said in a statement."Most of the ship has now been inspected and there are no indications that there is still fire on board," Rijkswaterstaat said, adding that the situation on board is now stable.The fire aboa

A burning car carrier off the Dutch coast is being towed to a new location away from shipping routes as part of a difficult operation to salvage the ship, the Dutch water board Rijkswaterstaat and media said.The ship will be towed to a location 16 km north of the Dutch islands Ameland and  Schiermonnikoog, Rijkswaterstaat said in a statement on Sunday.The towing operation began on Sunday, and it was not known when the ship, which was traveling from Germany to Egypt when the fire broke out…

The car carrier burning off the Dutch coast since Tuesday night is carrying nearly 500 electric vehicles, ship charter company "K" Line said on Friday, significantly more than the 25 initially reported by the coastguard.The fire on the Panamanian-registered Fremantle Highway, which was carrying new cars, resulted in the death of an Indian crew member and injury of seven others who jumped overboard to escape the flames.There were 3,783 vehicles on board, including 498 battery electric vehicles, a Tokyo-based spokesperson for K Line (Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha), which had chartered the vessel, said.

A burning car carrier was drifting off the Dutch coast on Thursday, the coastguard said, a day after the Panamanian-registered ship caught alight, causing the death of an Indian crew member and injuring several others.The 199-metre (653 ft) Fremantle Highway caught fire overnight Tuesday and several of the 23 crew jumped overboard to escape the flames and were rescued by the Dutch coastguard.The coastguard said on its website Thursday the cause of the fire was unknown, but an emergency responder is heard in a recording released by Dutch broadcaster RTL saying "the fire started in the battery o

Indonesia's coast guard said on Tuesday it seized an Iranian-flagged supertanker suspected of involvement in the illegal transshipment of crude oil, and vowed to toughen maritime patrols.The MT Arman 114 was carrying 272,569 metric tons of light crude oil, valued at 4.6 trillion rupiah ($304 million), when it was seized last week, the Indonesian authorities said.The Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) was suspected of transferring oil to another vessel without a permit on Friday, the Southeast Asian nation's maritime security agency said.The vessel was captured after being spotted in Indonesia's North Natuna Sea, carrying out a ship-to-ship oil transfer with the Cameroon-flagged MT S Tinos, the agency's chief, Aan Kurnia, said.

In addition to wind, offshore wind demands human energy, individuals with knowledge and skills first to build and then operate and maintain the dozens of projects required to meet President Biden’s 2030 goal of 30 GW of offshore generation. In an October 2022 National Renewable Energy Laboratory report – “U.S. Offshore Wind Workforce Assessment” – the authors estimate that it will require, on average, between 15,000 and 58,000 employees annually, depending on domestic content scenarios, to build out a huge new wind machine.Mariners and mariner training are integral to offshore wind.

Cracks in a muffler and the substantial use of combustible materials in accommodation spaces led to a fire aboard a towing vessel last year on the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway near Freeport, Texas, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said Thursday.On June 25, 2022, the four-person crew aboard the towing vessel Mary Dupre departed Port Comfort, Texas, for Houston, pushing a single barge loaded with bio-diesel fuel. The following day, a fire broke out, leading to a total loss of the vessel, which was estimated at $1 million.

The US Office of Investigations and Casualty Analysis Commandant has released US Coast Guard Marine Safety Alert 07-23, Critical Insight from Ongoing Investigations into Small Passenger Vessel Fires.The Safety Alert was prepared in response to multiple ongoing investigations being conducted by the U S Coast Guard and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) into fires onboard two certificated small passenger vessels. Both vessels sustained millions of dollars in structural damages.The alert highlights the risk of the open flames that can be used during dinner cruises.