Ajouter "Shipwreck of the German lighter carrier MS München."

Cargo #WreckShip Shipwreck of the German lighter carrier MS München. MS München is a German lighter carrier owned by Hapag Lloyd, which sank with her entire crew for an unknown reason during a severe storm in December 1978. According to the most likely version, one or more killer waves hit the vessel and damaged it, which caused it to drift for 33 hours with a 50-degree heel without electricity and with an inoperative engine. MS München was launched on May 12, 1972 at Cockerill, Hoboken, Flanders, Belgium and entered service on September 22, 1972. The München was a dry cargo ship, the only ship of its kind flying a German flag. The ship departed on its maiden voyage to the United States of America on October 19, 1972. The München left the port of Bremerhaven on December 7, 1978 and headed for Savannah, Georgia. This was the usual route, carrying a cargo of steel products stored in 83 lighters and a crew of 28. This was the 62nd voyage of the ship, in which it had to move across the North Atlantic, where a severe storm had been raging since November. Munich was designed to cope with these weather conditions. The exceptional buoyancy of the lighter carriers was such that they were considered virtually unsinkable. The Munich flight ran smoothly until the night of December 12-13. Between 00:05 and 00:07 (all time GMT), the radio operator of the lighter carrier Jörg Ernst went on the air on the "chat" frequency. He reported bad weather and some damage to the Munich ship to his colleague Heinz Lehmann, a radio operator aboard the German cruise ship MS Caribe, 2,400 nautical miles (4,440 km) away. Ernst also conveyed Munich's last known position. The transmission quality was poor, so Lehmann did not understand everything. As this was a standard message, the information was not released to the owner of the vessel until December 17th. Approximately three hours later (03: 10-03: 20) the SOS signal was received by the Greek dry cargo ship of the Panamax class "Marion", which was then transmitted to the Soviet motor ship "Maria Ermolova" and the German tugboat "Titan". MS München indicated its position, which was probably about 100 nautical miles (200 km) from its actual position. Messages were transmitted using Morse code, and only snippets of code were received. According to one of the scraps of the message, "50 degrees to starboard", which could be interpreted as a 50-degree roll to starboard. The automatic emergency signal has also been received by several radio stations since 04:43. After 07:34 no more signals were recorded, probably because American stations stopped listening on a frequency of 2182 kHz. An international search and rescue operation was launched at 1730 hours, coordinated by the British Coast Guard at Lands End, Cornwall. Between 5:00 pm and 7:14 pm, ten weak Mayday signals were received by the station at US Naval Base Rota, Spain at regular intervals, mentioning "28 people on board." Messages could be recorded and sent automatically. München's callsign, "DEAT", which was transmitted using Morse code, was received three times on the same frequency. The Dutch ocean-going rescue tug Smith Rotterdam, returning from other emergency calls to the Gulf of Morbihan and the English Channel, also received signals from the München and sailed to the designated position under the command of Captain de Nijs. The Lands End Coast Guard provided search planning and areas to be covered, and appointed rescue tug Smit Rotterdam as leader coordinating the activities of more than 100 ships, as well as 16 aircraft temporarily based in the Azores. On December 17 at 13:00, the Düsseldorf Express fished out the München emergency buoy. By that time, the wind speed had dropped to 3 points. The cargo ship Starlight found two lifebuoys, and the fourth empty liferaft was picked up by the Sealand Consumer. Three lifejackets were also seen, two of which were lifted by Starlight and one by Evelyn. The international search operation officially ended on the evening of December 20, a week after the start. The West German government and Hapag-Lloyd decided to search for the München for two more days with the support of British and American troops. A total of 13 aircraft from the UK, USA, Portugal and Germany, as well as nearly 80 merchant and naval vessels, were looking for the ship or its crew. On February 16, the Don Carlos car transporter picked up the damaged right-hand lifeboat