After the sinking of the freighter "Felicity Ace": Almost 4000 luxury cars from VW, Porsche and Audi on the seabed, salvage hardly possible

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"Car-tastrophe":

After days of extinguishing work, the car freighter "Felicity Ace" (photo from March 1) sank with its valuable cargo - and is now 3000 meters deep on the seabed off the Azores

Photo:

HANDOUT / AFP

The fire in the car transporter "Felicity Ace" on the high seas in February was in the headlines for days, the sinking of the ship built in 2005 with thousands of luxury cars on board left many questions unanswered.

However, average experts consider it impossible that the car carrier, which is now more than 3,000 meters below the water surface near the Portuguese Azores, can still be salvaged.

Such an action would be too costly and too risky.

And certainly too expensive.

The salvage of the cruise ship "Costa Concordia", which hit a rock off the island of Giglio in 2012 and got stuck, cost around 1.5 billion euros.

"Unfortunately, salvaging the 'Felicity Ace' is hardly possible because of the depth at which the freighter is now located," says

, a chemist at Greenpeace in the marine protection team.

At the same time, however, he expresses his concern about this situation: "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 with the pressure prevailing at this depth is difficult to estimate. In each In this case, the release of pollutants is to be expected."

The Volkswagen Group is meanwhile keeping a low profile with information about the accident, although the sunken shipload consisted mainly of almost 4,000 new cars from the various group brands VW, Audi, Porsche and Bentley.

There were also one-offs such as a Porsche Boxster Spyder or the special edition Lamborghini Aventador Ultimae.

There are also reports of other extraordinary losses, for example rare vehicles such as the 1977 Land Rover Santana or a 1996 Honda Prelude.

Insurance damage 500 million euros

"We regret the sinking of the "Felicity Ace" and have great respect for the performance of all emergency services," said a Volkswagen spokesman.

"We are relieved to be informed by the shipping company that the ship's crew was completely rescued. The Volkswagen Group does not own the ship and can therefore say nothing about the ship itself, the accident, the sinking and its environmental impact."

According to the company spokesman, however, the damage to the loaded vehicles is insured.

"The shipload was intended for the American market. Brands and dealers have started to inform their customers and to find individual solutions," said the spokesman.

External experts estimate the insurance damage incurred at around 500 million euros - for the ship belonging to the Japanese shipping company MOL Ship Management and the vehicles together.

Nature bears the damage of the Car-tastrophe above all

In this case, also known as a "car disaster", the damage to most buyers of the vehicles will probably only be limited to delays.

But the ecological problem with fires on ships and accidents persists.

"Accidents resulting in marine pollution are increasing, and containers in particular are lost on the high seas almost every day," says Greenpeace expert Santen. "In general, electronic components and especially electric vehicles pose a risk for every transport."

Because of the high energy of charged batteries, any resulting fires are difficult to extinguish.

"This year we have already seen a lot of oil tanker and drilling platform accidents, which add to the pollution of the seas, in addition to all the problems we already have there," reports Santen.

Fire protection regulations are tightened

Christian Naegeli

, officer for ship safety, nautical engineering, technology and environmental protection at the German Shipowners' Association (VDR), assesses the danger in a similar way: "We are also concerned about the increasing number of fires on freighters, especially container ships and car transporters - even if they are is still only a few incidents overall."

The VDR therefore welcomes the fact that the International Maritime Organization (IMO) wants to tighten corresponding fire protection regulations worldwide.

"For example, new car transporters should be equipped with mandatory heat detectors and video surveillance on vehicle decks, and ships already in motion should be retrofitted accordingly," says Naegeli.

In addition, the IMO is also working on adapting the transport regulations for certain dangerous goods.

"But another problem is the incorrect declaration of dangerous cargo on board ships - here the shippers are called upon to make urgent improvements," says Naegli.

In a recent report, the ship insurer AGCS, a subsidiary of Allianz, lists more than 70 fires on freighters in the past five years.

Fires are particularly critical for car transporters, because the growing number of electric vehicles being transported by sea increases the risk: lithium-ion batteries are highly flammable, and according to AGCS, the existing extinguishing systems are often hardly able to contain a rapidly blazing fire.

Lamborghini resumes production

Greenpeace also sees further potential for improvement here: "Unfortunately, containers and especially dangerous goods transports are not secured as well as they could actually be. We therefore call for these to be provided with buoys that float up in the event of an accident and thus make it much easier to find a container " says Santen.

It would also make sense if every country with a coast on the world's oceans had its own emergency command so that it could intervene as quickly as possible in the event of a shipwreck.

Such suggestions come too late for the "Felicity Ace" and her cargo, which, like most shipwrecks that have sunk on the high seas, will probably remain in the depths of the sea forever.

Incidentally, this could have ended particularly tragically for the buyers of the 15 Aventador models from the limited LP-70-A Ultimae series.

But here Lamborghini boss

(57) was flexible, the luxury manufacturer resumed production of the production that had actually already been discontinued.

With a delay of at least six months, the luxury cars should still reach their solvent buyers in the USA.