Two supertankers collide in the Caribbean Sea - July 19th, 1979

On this day in 1979, during a tropical storm, two enormous supertankers collided off the coast of Tobago.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio. Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class,
a show that reveals a little bit more about history
day by day. I'm Gay Bluesier, and today we're talking

(00:21):
about a thankfully rare occurrence, the deadly collision between two
fully loaded oil tankers. The day was July seventy nine.
During a tropical storm, to enormous supertankers collided off the

(00:43):
coast of Tobago. The two vessels, known as the Atlantic
Empress and the Aegean Captain, were each carrying hundreds of
thousands of tons of crude oil. Their collision created a
twenty five square mile oil slick in the Caribbean Sea
and claimed the lives of twenty seven crew members. It

(01:04):
was the largest tanker spill on record at the time,
and one of just a few instances in history when
two oil tankers have struck one another. Each of the
giant ships involved in the crash was more than three
hundred meters in length, three times longer than an American
football field. The Atlantic Empress had set sail from Beaumont, Texas,

(01:27):
and was en route to an oil terminal in Saudi Arabia.
It was loaded with two hundred and seventy six thousand
tons of light crude oil. Meanwhile, the Aegean Captain had
set out from Curassow and Bonair carrying about two hundred
thousand tons of light and heavy crude oil. That ship

(01:47):
was bound for a refinery in Singapore and was therefore
heading in the opposite direction of the Atlantic Empress. The
trouble began in the early evening of July nineteenth, when
the two vessels were passing one another about eighteen miles
off the shore of Tobago. A tropical rainstorm severely reduced
the visibility of the ships, and as a result, neither

(02:10):
knew it was on a collision course with the other
until it was far too late. At around seven pm,
the second officer of the Aegean Captain finally sighted the
Atlantic Empress when the ships were just two meters apart.
That officer, Pisco Pianos Christos, immediately started turning the ship

(02:30):
left in the hope that the Atlantic Empress would do
the same and a collision would be avoided. Unfortunately, the
Empress didn't react in time, and the bow of the
Aegean Captain wound up striking a planting blow into its side.
The explosion was instantaneous, and both tankers burst into flames.

(02:51):
The captains of both vessels ordered their crews to abandon
ship right away. However, the evacuation of the Aegean Captain
went much more smoothly than that of the Atlantic Empress.
Panic seized the crew of the latter ship, causing many
of the men to leap into the burning waters. In
the end, twenty six crewmen of the Atlantic Empress died

(03:12):
in the flames, while only one perished aboard the Aegean Captain.
One reason for that disparity and death toll is the
severity of the fires on each ship. Fire had only
broken out on the starboard bow of the Aegean Captain
and was extinguished relatively quickly by the Trinidad and Tobago
Coast Guard. It was then towed to cure a sow,

(03:35):
leaking crude oil all the way. Once it arrived, the
remaining oil was transferred to other vessels and the arduous
task of repairing the ship began. Meanwhile, back aboard the
Atlantic Empress, things were much more dire. The ship was
burning all over and had even started to sink. Two
tug boats were dispatched to tow the burning ship further

(03:58):
out to sea, while a salvage team worked to control
the blaze. For the next ten days, firefighters worked day
and night with foam guns and hoses, trying desperately to
keep the ship and its remaining cargo afloat. They had
made good headway by the evening of July twenty nine,
but just minutes after the team left the ship for

(04:19):
the night, a large explosion rocked the Atlantic Empress. One
of the oil tanks had exploded, tearing open the main
deck and destroying most of the firefighting equipment on board.
The fire spread worse than before, and by August two,
the metal plating of the ship's hull began to give way.

(04:39):
The tow crew released the ship at that point and
backed away, as oil had begun to pool around the tanker.
Soon the Atlantic Empress began to sink in earnest witnesses
reported seeing its bow red hot from the flames poking
out of the water just before the ships sank out
of sight. A full two weeks after the vision, roughly

(05:01):
two hundred and eighty seven thousand metric tons of oil
or about ninety million gallons were spilled from the Atlantic
Empress alone, making it the largest ship based spill ever recorded.
The oil slick continued to burn after the ship had sunk,
its flames stretching five hundred feet into the air, with

(05:21):
the smoke reaching six thousand feet. Much of the oil
was consumed by the fire, but aircraft continued to fly
over the area to spray disperse sense. Although a massive
amount of oil was released during the ordeal, the spill
reportedly caused only minor environmental damage to nearby beaches. Winds
were said to have pushed most of the oil out

(05:43):
to sea, sparing the local islands from the brunt of
what would have been significant pollution. It's worth noting, though,
that no impact studies were conducted to measure the full
effects of the spill. Media coverage of the Supertanker collision
was soon overtaken by an even larger spill, a blowout
at the XTC oil well in the Gulf of Mexico,

(06:06):
which would take nearly ten months to contain. This quick
succession of oil based disasters highlighted the many inherent dangers
in extracting, refining, and transporting the volatile resource. It also
called attention to a troubling pattern that's all too frequently
repeated even today. Private businesses make a huge mess, whether

(06:27):
through negligence, human error, or just bad luck. Then government
swoop in to clean things up, and any lasting problems
are left for the public and nature to deal with.
Say what you will about energy alternatives like wind and solar,
but they are called clean for a reason. I'm Gay

(06:48):
Blusier and hopefully you now know a little more about
history today than you did yesterday. If you'd like to
keep up with the show, you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at t d I HC Show, and if
you have any comments or suggestions, you can always send
them my way at this Day at I heart media

(07:10):
dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing the show,
and thanks to you for listening. I'll see you back
here again tomorrow for another Day in History class