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Cruise Ship Strikes Ice, Lists, Sinks In Antarctic

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By BILL CORMIER, The Associated Press

Published: November 24, 2007

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - A Canadian cruise ship struck submerged ice in frigid Antarctic waters Friday, driving all 154 tourists and crew members into bobbing lifeboats before they were plucked to safety by a passing ship, authorities said.

No injuries were reported, although passengers endured subfreezing temperatures while awaiting rescue by the Norwegian cruise liner that took them to safety at a Chilean military base.

The Canadian ship MS Explorer, its hull gashed with a fist-sized hole by the ice, listed so severely for several hours that aerial photographs showed it nearly on its side amid ice floes hours after the pre-dawn accident off Antarctica's South Shetland Islands. It later sank.

Arnvid Hansen, captain of the Norwegian liner Nordnorge, said his vessel ferried the shipwrecked crew and mostly American, British and Dutch passengers to a Chilean air force base on King George Island, in Antarctic waters near the southernmost tip of South America.

"The rescue operation ran very smoothly," the 54-year-old captain said by telephone from the Nordnorge.

An Argentine rescue and command center first received a distress call from the Explorer at 12:30 a.m. Friday, amid reports the ship was taking on water despite efforts to use onboard pumps, said Capt. Juan Pablo Panichini, an Argentine navy spokesman.

The Explorer's captain ordered his passengers to abandon ship about 90 minutes later, prompting them to climb in darkness into eight semi-rigid lifeboats and four life rafts, with the captain leaving the ship later, a navy statement said.
Susan Hayes of G.A.P. Adventures of Toronto, which owns the Explorer, said 91 passengers had been aboard, including at least 13 Americans, 23 Britons, 17 Dutch, 10 Canadians and 10 Australians - in addition to nine expedition staff members and a crew of 54.

"The ship ran into some ice. It was submerged ice and the result was a hole about the size of a fist in the side of the hull, so it began taking on water ... but quite slowly," Hayes said, noting that the pumps had helped ensure an orderly evacuation.

"The passengers are absolutely fine. They're all accounted for, no injuries whatsoever," she said.

G.A.P Adventures is a tour company that provides eco-friendly excursions with an environmental focus, Hayes said. The Explorer was in the midst of a 19-day circuit of Antarctica and the Falkland Islands, taking passengers to observe penguins, whales and other wildlife while receiving briefings from shipboard experts on the region.

Traveling to Antarctica is always risky, Hayes said.

"There is ice in the area. Obviously it's a hazard," she said. "But it's highly unusual" that the ship would hit the ice," she said. "This has never happened to us."

A Chilean ornithologist identified as Paola Palavecino told Argentine media that she and other passengers boarded the lifeboats hours before dawn and endured subfreezing temperatures until they were rescued around 6 a.m.

"The ship took on water quickly," she told a local radio station by telephone from the Nordnorge, the Argentine news agency Diarios y Noticias reported.

A commander at Chile's air base on King George Island confirmed late Friday that the Nordnorge had arrived in a bay near the base, but said waves and strong winds had prevented passengers from disembarking.
Chilean air force planes plan to fly the rescued passengers and crew today to Punta Arenas at the southernmost tip of Chile, he said.

An Argentine navy statement said that at the time of the accident, the Explorer was about 445 miles southeast of Ushuaia, Argentina's southernmost city and a jumping-off point for cruise ships and supply vessels for Antarctica. Seas were calm and winds light, officials said.

Last February the Nordnorge evacuated 294 passengers from another cruise ship, the MS Nordkapp, which ran aground off a remote Antarctic island. The Nordkapp was later able to pull off those rocks itself, and authorities said those passengers were never in danger.

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