Captain and Five Officers Charged with Negligence - Two Passengers Missing in Sinking of Greek Cruise Ship at Santorini
Two passengers, a father and daughter from France, remain missing. The Louis Cruise Lines' cruise ship the Sea Diamond hit rocks as she attempted to anchor at the Greek island of Santorini . Anyone who has visited Santorini will remember the spectacular volcanic caldera where cruise ships navigate and anchor before the passengers are tendered ashore. More than a dozen ships and five Navy helicopters answered the Sea Diamond distress call and assisted in the evacuation.Louis Cruise Lines is a Cyprus-based company with a fleet of 10 ships.The Sea Diamond was built in Finland in 1986 and significantly refurbished in 1999. She was once named the Birka Princess, and sailed 3, 4, and 7-day cruises of the Greek Islands for Louis Cruise Lines since 2006.
Maritime officials must now determine how to effectively deal with the 100 tons of oil that are leaking from the sunken ship. It is currently being contained as plans are made to remove the remaining oil from the ship safely.
April 5 - Picture of Listing Sea Diamond Cruise Ship in Santorini Caldera and Passenger's Tale of Accident
April 6 Update - Sea Diamond Sinks Early Friday Morning, Two Passengers Reported Missing
April 7 Update - Divers Search for Two Missing Passengers
April 7 Update - Captain and 5 Officers Charged with Negligence - CNN Video of Ship Sinking
April 11 Update - Sunken Cruise Ship Leaks 100 Tons of Oil
April 14 Update - Black Box Recovered from Sunken Sea Diamond Cruise Ship
Santorini Picture (c) Linda Garrison
Comments
It’s been announced that two cruisers are unaccounted for. I am supposed to be going on the Sea Diamond at the end of this month. Ugh!
I just back home on Apr 3, before Apr3, i still on the Sea Diamond, omg!! But I’m not happy to look at the Sea Diamond ………….
It’s amazing to hear that this ship sank. I was on it this past summer from 2 June to 5 June. What a shame that it had to sink; it was a very nice ship, and I’m fortunate that I wasn’t on it, and my 7 other peers who were with me.
What I want to know if this ship took over 15hrs to sink, WHY??? was there no savaging companies that was in flying distance, or tugs that could assist in preventing this ship from sinking. If The Greek Navy was present surely there must be some qualified people around to slow the water from coming in. The way I read this is that they WANTED the ship to sink. And to hell about anybody dying? WHY? WHY? WHY? This Does Not make any sence what so ever.
Not knowing the internal design of the Sea Diamond,did it have water tight hatches and bulkheads. That could have isolated the flooding. If it did the crew could be at fault, if it did not attempt to control the flood. Now if there was no water tight hatches and bulkheads there is nothing the crew could have done to save the ship.
If there is no safty features as such on these types of ships maybe this should be look at.
Currents don’t just spring up out of now where do they? Why didn’t they have a pilot onboard? I suppose expecting a double hull is just silly. Will we now hear that the steel plates in the hull had too much suphur in them like the Titanic. I love cruising but this is very sobering.
I was never on the Sea Diamond but had a very bad experience sailing on another ship from Louis Cruise Lines about 18 months ago. My wife and I said we would never sail with them again.