Incident At 17:50 on 27 December 2014,
Norman Atlantic departed
Patras on a ferry run bound for
Ancona where she was scheduled to arrive at 20:30 on 28 December. The sea conditions were rough, with a strong south westerly wind blowing at up to . During the incident the ship would eventually drift into Italian waters. The Italian ferry
Cruise Europa rescued a further 69 passengers and brought them to Igoumenitsa. Sixteen helicopters and four fixed wing aircraft also assisted the rescue. After being rescued, some passengers asserted that the order to abandon ship was not given until four hours after the fire had started. Despite their cabins filling with smoke, no alarm had sounded. They also stated that the crew of
Norman Atlantic gave them little assistance. Those in the lifeboat were rescued by the Singapore-registered
container ship and landed at
Bari, Italy. Several
liferafts were also launched, but some of them capsized, causing the deaths by
drowning or
hypothermia of several occupants. Other people in the sea or in the rafts were rescued by helicopters. . The rescue effort was hampered by the
Norman Atlantic's loss of power. The firefighting tugboat
Marietta Barretta was able to attach a line to the ferry and turn it into the wind, enabling helicopters to begin operating. Captain Giacomazzi was
the last one to leave the ship at 2.50 pm.
Aftermath At least twelve people were killed as a direct result of the fire, and an additional two
Albanian tugboat crewmembers were killed during salvage operations on 30 December when a connecting cable snapped. Officials stated that one person died after jumping from the burning ship. Three of the rescued people who were on board the Norman Atlantic were
Afghan illegal immigrants who stowed away in lorries in the hold. Among those killed was Ilia Kartozia, a
Georgian Orthodox priest, who, according to an eyewitness, helped others to evacuate, but the rescuers failed to save him. His body was recovered off
Lecce on 30 December 2014.
Norman Atlantic was towed to the port of
Brindisi, Italy, by the
Marietta Barretta and two additional tugs,
Tenax and
Asmara, arriving there on 2 January 2015. On 6 January, a lifeboat from the
Norman Atlantic was found on a beach near
Valona,
Albania. The
Norman Atlantic continued to burn in port for almost two weeks until 10 January 2015, when firefighters were finally able to enter the hull for inspection. On 2 February 2015, just before the boat was due to be towed to Bari, a second body was discovered in the truck parking area. In the same days, the bodies of three people, presumably belonging to some of the missing, were found on the coast of Corfu and Apulia. The damage to the ship was extensive. The hull plating and deck had been deformed, all communication and navigation equipment was destroyed and the accommodation and common areas were gutted. The ship had been inspected at
Patras, Greece on 19 December; six serious deficiencies had been found, relating to emergency lighting, fire doors and lifesaving capacity onboard the vessel. The owners had been served with a notice giving them fifteen days to remedy the deficiencies. On 2 January 2015 the prosecutor's office in
Bari widened the investigation, and put two other crew members and two representatives of the Greek ferry line
ANEK Lines, which chartered the Norman Atlantic, under investigation. Rear Admiral John Lang, formerly Chief Inspector at Britain's
Marine Accident Investigation Branch, said the emergency, under freezing stormy conditions at night "challenges many of the established conventions and wisdom on how a mass rescue should be conducted." He said that, in the course of the investigation, the right rather than the convenient conclusions should be drawn, adding "Rarely has the outcome of a comprehensive and thorough investigation been more important for improving safety at sea." A Turkish passenger reported, as a possible cause, that illegal
Afghan immigrants, who had boarded the ship concealed in a lorry, had lit a fire in the ship's garage to keep themselves warm. Another possible cause was sparks caused by trucks scraping the sides of the vessel. Although the
voyage data recorder (black box) had been recovered, still by mid-March no data have been extracted, apparently because the heat of the fire caused the plastic to melt onto the hard disk. Recordings of the
Voyage data recorder published on 7 October 2015, say that the
fire sprinkler system wasn't working correctly and instead of spraying water there was smoke coming from the system. The investigations also stated that there was a truck that had the engine working. Smoke was coming from the truck prior to the fire. ==Fate==