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The wreck of the Italian cruise ship MS Achille Lauro MS Achille Lauro is a cruise ship based in Naples, Italy. Ordered in 1938 to replace aging ships on the Dutch East Indies route, her keel was laid down in 1939 at the shipyard in Vlissingen, the Netherlands, for Rotterdamsche Lloyd. Construction was interrupted by World War II and two bombing raids. The cruise ship was launched in July 1946 under the name Willem Ruys. The ship was named after the grandson of the founder of Rotterdamsche Lloyd, who was taken hostage and shot during the war. Willem Ruys was completed at the end of 1947. At that time, Rotterdamsche Lloyd received a royal prefix in honor of his services during the war. Willem Ruys was 192 meters long, 25 meters wide, and had a draft of 8.9 meters. Eight Sulzer engines drove two propellers. It could accommodate 900 passengers. It had a superstructure that was very different from other liners of that era. Willem Ruys was the first to invent low-slung aluminum lifeboats on topsides. The next ship to adopt this unique layout was the SS Canberra in 1961. Today, all cruise ships follow this pattern, and lifeboat hulls are made of fiberglass reinforced plastic. The cruise ship named Willem Ruys set off on her maiden voyage on December 5, 1947. Together with his main competitor and partner Netherland Line's MS Oranje, he became popular on the Dutch East Indies route. However, when the East Indies gained independence from the Netherlands in 1949, passenger numbers decreased. On January 6, 1953, Willem Ruys collided in the Red Sea with her partner MS Oranje, who was heading in the opposite direction. At that time, passenger ships usually passed each other at close range to entertain their passengers. During a sharp and fast approach to landing the Oranje, Willem Ruys made an unexpected turn to port, which led to a collision. The ship Oranje badly damaged her bow. Due to the possibility that the ship would be arrested for safety reasons, he did not sail to Colombo as planned and went straight to Jakarta. Willem Ruys suffered less. There were no dead people. It was later determined that the cause of the collision was a miscommunication on both ships. He made two charter flights to Montreal on the Europe-Canada route. Then, from September 20, 1958 to February 25, 1959, she underwent a major overhaul at the Wilton-Fijenoord shipyard in Amsterdam, turning her from a passenger liner into a cruise ship. His original four class distinctions became first and touring class. One hundred new cabins were installed, and air conditioning was distributed throughout. At the end of 1964, due to a severe drop in passenger traffic, the Willem Ruys was laid up in Rotterdam and put up for sale. In 1965 it was sold to Flotta Lauro Line and renamed Achille Lauro in honor of the owner of the company. It was completely rebuilt and modernized after an onboard explosion in August 1965 and entered service in 1966 to carry passengers to Sydney, Australia. The ship played a role in evacuating the families of British soldiers involved in the Aden riots and made one of the last passages north through the Suez Canal before it was closed during the Six Day War. On October 7, 1985, four members of the Palestine Liberation Front took control of a liner off the coast of Egypt as it sailed from Alexandria to Port Said. Taking the passengers and crew hostage, they sent the ship to Tartus, Syria, and demanded the release of 50 Palestinians who were in Israeli prisons. Denied permission to dock at Tartus, the hijackers killed Leon Klinghoffer, a disabled Jewish American, and then threw his body overboard. The ship continued in service, she was re-flagged in 1989 when the Lauro Line was taken over by the Mediterranean Shipping Company and became StarLauro. On November 30, 1994, it caught fire off the coast of Somalia en route to South Africa with 979 passengers and crew on board. At the time, Italian officials said the fire was caused by a discarded cigarette, but it actually started in the engine room after one of the boilers exploded. Due to lack of supervision, the fire got out of control before it was discovered. Two people died and eight were injured while being evacuated to rescue ships. The crash site has not been located.