The freighter Felicity Ace sinks after a fire in the middle of the Atlantic. The ship goes down with around 4,000 VW cars. An expert is now warning that such “car disasters” will increase and have consequences for the oceans and nature.
A fire broke out on the freighter “Felicity Ace” on the Atlantic south of the Azores in February. The transport ship occupied the Volkswagen Group in particular for several weeks.
The ship in Emden had loaded 4,000 vehicles for the American market, including electric cars such as the ID.4, but also expensive luxury bodies from Porsche, Bentley, Audi and Lamborghini. But they never reached their destination. The freighter sank at sea while the ship was being towed.
Now the “Felicity Ace” is 3000 meters deep on the bottom of the sea – and that’s where it will probably stay. Average experts consider a salvage impossible. Such an action is too expensive and too risky, reports the “Manager Magazin”. Above all, the depth is a problem.
For the automotive industry, the case is closed. When the ship went down in Wolfsburg, it was said that nothing more could be done about the cargo. The damage is covered by insurance. When asked by the magazine, the group now emphasized that it does not own the ship. Thus, VW “can’t say anything about the ship itself, about the accident, the sinking and its environmental impact.”
But the latter in particular leaves nature conservationists with no rest. “It is worrying that the ship with the many vehicles is now exposed to this high pressure far below the sea surface. What exactly happens at the pressure prevailing at this depth is difficult to estimate. In any case, the release of pollutants is to be expected,” explains Manfred Santen to “Manager Magazin”. Santen is a chemist at Greenpeace on the marine conservation team.
“Accidents resulting in marine pollution are increasing, with containers in particular being lost on the high seas almost every day,” Greenpeace expert Santen continues. In general, electronic components and especially electric vehicles pose a risk for every transport. Unfortunately, containers and especially dangerous goods transports are not as well secured as it would actually be possible.
“We therefore demand that they be provided with buoys that float up in the event of an accident and thus make it much easier to find a container,” said Santen. The expert also thinks it makes sense if every country with a coast to the oceans has a would have its own emergency command, which would then be able to intervene as quickly as possible in the event of a shipwreck.
