Welcome to my World.
Part 1 of a Series
Hello everybody my name is Andy and we are going to see a worlds first, never before seen video of the efforts made to retrieve the bodies of the victims of a tragic event which happened in the Philippines when a passenger ship collided with a freighter leading to the deaths of over 100 people.
I was part of the team to retrieve bodies and I wanted to share after seven years the full video of the first dive my team made. I did several dives in the subsequent weeks and it was quite a traumatic experience.
The MV Thomas Aquinas was a 455-foot or 139 meter long roll-on/roll-off ferry or RORO capable of transporting both passengers and their vehicles. It measured 11,000 tons and was commissioned in 1973. It was operated by 2Go shipping lines.
It sailed from Nasipit, Agusan Del Norte in Mindanao bound for Cebu city. At around 9pm on the evening of August 16, 2013, the ship collided in a narrow straight with a freighter Sulpicio Express Siete as it entered Cebu. Until today, who was at fault is still disputed, but to me its clear that both crews did not do enough to avoid this tragedy.
The MV Thomas Aquinas was hit on its starboard side head on by the freighter. Water immediately rushed into the hull of the ship and disabled its engine and generators. As the crew signaled to abandon ship the power went out trapping many. As the ship started to take on water, the freighter basically attached to the Thomas Aquinas backed up to avoid sinking with the passenger ship. This led to more water entering the ship and the Thomas Aquinas sank quickly into the dark waters. Almost 900 passengers and crew were on the ship when it sank. Of those on board 750 were rescued and the rest perished. 58 of the passengers were infants and children and many of them were lost and never retrieved.
Part 2 of Series
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Part 3 of Series
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#techdiving #wreckdiving #scuba #history #cebu #2go #philippinecoastguard
#coastguard #history #documentary #gopro
