Komsomolets Kalmykia (dry cargo ship)

Last Shipment

The cargo ship arrived in Cagliari on December 21, 1974, mooring at the port, to the western pier ( Italian molo di ponente ). The crew consisted of 36 sailors, 5 of whom were women. His cargo was partially ready, especially caustic soda in metal barrels lying near the bridge crane , and bar steel was on the way to another bulk carrier from the city of Genoa . The loading was completed on December 30 as follows: 1,735 tons of caustic soda were loaded into the hold and 4,939 tons of bar steel were loaded into tweendecks .

Crash

On the eve of New Year's Eve , December 31, 1974, in the afternoon, the Komsomolets Kalmykia dry cargo ship, having removed the pier in the Italian port of Cagliari ( Sardinia Island ), despite a storm of 6 points, left the water course towards Kerch , and two hours later the ship left - for covering it from the north-east of Cape Carbonara ( Italian: Capo Carbonara ), where he drowned due to the movement of cargo.

Rescue Operation

At 14 hours 45 minutes, a ship lying on the starboard side with a roll of 12 degrees sent an SOS distress signal, half of the rescue equipment turned out to be half flooded, the crew managed to drop one boat into the water with difficulty. Many jumped into the sea just because the ship began to sink. Within 40 minutes before the moment of moving the cargo, the Komsomolets of Kalmykia hid under the waves with its captain.

The Cagliari port radar registered SOS , surprisingly, the rescue personnel interpreted this as a New Year's greetings, and took no action.

At about 6 p.m., when it got dark, nine sailors on a half-wrecked boat managed to get to the rocky coast of Cape Carbonara, one of them went up to the lighthouse , all wounded on rocks and cacti, it was met by people armed with machine guns. Having somehow explained with the caretaker and the guards, the latter finally understood what had happened and sent a telephone message to Cagliari. Thanks to the strength and courage of this sailor, a rescue expedition left Cagliari .

The suffering of the seafarers in the cold water stretched out for another two and a half hours before the arrival of the tugboat Vigore. In the hospital, where both the living and the dead were taken, they concluded that several people had already died in a rescue tug from asphyxiation .

List of the dead

• Sychev Nikolay ( captain )
• Marshown Valery ( fourth assistant captain )
• Gourmet Victor ( sailor )
• Gruzdev Vitaliy ( electrician )
• Makhno Nikolay ( minder )
• Matveev Ivan ( head of the radio )
• Bakaleysky Stanislav ( minder )
• Bukalo Anatoly ( turner )
• Bunina Lyudmila ( barmaid )

Searches and discovery

The Soviet ship Romny, the first of the Azov ships to arrive at the scene of the tragedy, joined the Italian search operation to determine the coordinates of the drowned Komsomolets Kalmykia. The search continued nine miles from Cape Carbonara, between the islands of Serpentara and Cavoli ( Italian: isole di Serpentara e Cavoli ), but the vessel was not found.

In 2008, a professional diver Stefano Masala ( Italian: Stefano Masala ) from Quartu Santelena ( Italian: Quartu Sant'Elena ), found a drowned ship Komsomolets Kalmykia, lying on the right side at a depth of 118 meters, not far from the coast of Cape Carbonara, where today is a marine reserve ( Italian: Area Marina Protetta di Capo Carbonara ).

Tragedy Investigation

At first, the responsibility for the crash was assigned entirely to Captain Nikolai Ivanovich Sychev and his crew for going into the sea while intoxicated. Later it turned out that the presence of alcohol in the body of sailors was a consequence of the fact that during their rescue they had a strong hypothermia. When boarding the tugboat Vigore, they were given several sips of whiskey.

According to the statement of the injured sailors, it turned out that loading was carried out too quickly on the last day, there was very little time to check the reliability of cargo fastening, especially of bar steel, since both the shipping company and Moscow itself received radiograms about the mandatory departure to the sea on December 31 . As a result, the ship left the port with a roll of 6 degrees.

In 1980, the Cagliari prosecutor's office completed a long judicial investigation into the tragedy, accusing the captain of the port, Captain Bruno Sassu, of negligence, which consisted of an untimely and protracted operation for the rescue of sailors, and the incompetence of the port captain himself, who instead of high-speed rescue boats with medical workers on board, sent the tug "Vigore" to the scene of the tragedy, the speed of which is much lower and without medical personnel.

New star

• Bulk carriers of the “Fiftieth Anniversary of Komsomol” type (inaccessible link)
• International vessel registration data (inaccessible link)
• Newspaper court investigation (p. 26)
• Crash site