As of: April 9, 2024, 6:26 a.m
By: Michael Stürzer, Volker Ufertinger
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The MS Bayern has been on land in Starnberg for months, and dismantling work began on Monday. A fire broke out in the ship's engine room. Thank God it all turned out absolutely smoothly. Michael Grießer, Managing Director of Bavarian Lakes Shipping © Andrea Jaksch
Scrapping work on the decommissioned MS Bayern began on Monday. This can be dangerous on such old ships - this became apparent after just a few hours when a fire broke out in the hull during welding work. Nobody got hurt.
Starnberg
- A fire during the initial dismantling work on the MS Bayern on the Bavarian Lakes Shipping site in Starnberg led to a large-scale operation for fire departments on Monday. No one was injured and there was no actual damage to property.
At around 1:40 p.m., the control center massively alerted fire departments after receiving the report - it was a so-called B4 alarm, which doesn't happen too often. For example, a room fire is a B3, a smoldering trash can is a B1. Consequence: In addition to the Starnberg and Leutstetten fire departments, Söcking, Pöcking and Gauting were alerted, as were the two emergency control vehicles from Oberpfaffenhofen and Meiling, the district fire inspection and other managers. However, it was already clear when the report was made that it was not a fire on the water - then even more emergency services would have been alerted.
The Starnberg and Leutstetten fire departments made their way into the ship and into the engine room where the fire originated. A total of three teams with breathing apparatus were deployed. The fire was out after about 20 minutes, Starnberg's commander Markus Grasl explained after the operation. The majority of the fire departments were on standby around the shipyard site, but did not have to intervene.
Specialists knew about the danger and took precautions
When asked by Starnberger Merkur, Michael Grießer, managing director of Bavarian Lake Shipping, explained that the accident occurred on the first day on which the MS Bayern was scrapped. The incident occurred as workers were using a plasma cutter to cut through metal on the ship's chimney. The specialist company responsible for scrapping work was aware that something like this could happen to an old ship like the MS Bayern. “That’s why they assigned someone specifically to pay attention to it,” says Grießer. When it actually happened, the fire department was called immediately and they nipped the fire in the bud.
“Thank God it all went absolutely smoothly,” emphasized Grießer. The material damage is extremely low. Yesterday he could not say with certainty whether and what impact the incident would have on further scrapping work. “I assume that the work will take around 14 days.” After that, the MS Bayern will then be disposed of professionally, just like the old MS Seeshaupt, by the same specialist company.
The MS Bayern is (still) the oldest lake shipping ship on Lake Starnberg, but has not sailed for more than a year. The hull dates from 1939, but the ship was only completed and put into service after the war in 1948. The MS Bayern is 48 meters long, more than ten meters wide and had space for around 700 passengers. In 2022, she developed a leak that could not be repaired immediately - the MS Bayern had to be pulled ashore. Because of the very low water level of Lake Starnberg in some places, this was not possible for a long time, until last fall. The investigation of the damage subsequently revealed that the hull could not be economically repaired - the steamer was permanently taken out of service.
Whether and if so a new ship will be built for Lake Starnberg will not be decided until after the 2024 season at the earliest. This means that four ships currently remain in the fleet: the catamaran Starnberg, the MS Seeshaupt, the MS Bernried and EMS Berg.