GROUNDED FERRY NAMED GÖKÇEADA-1 HAS BEEN REFLOATED

On 19.04.2015, GÖKÇEADA-1 ferry which belongs to GESTAŞ Company was grounded outside the Jetty of Gökçeada port at 04.19 p.m. while cruising between Kabatepe – Gökçeada district.

In order to salvage the 84 m. long ferry with 188 ticketed passengers, 11 crew member and 39 vehicles, our Kurtarma 7 tugboat, Kıyı Emniyeti 9 SAR boat and divers were immediately sent to the place of incident.

RESCUE EFFORTS…

Our Kurtarma 7 tugboat arrived to the place of incident at 07.15 p.m. and reported that no pollution or loss of life occurred. Furthermore, the master of GÖKÇEADA-1 declared that he didn’t request for emergency assistance.

Since our Kıyı Emniyeti 9 boat considered that in case of a request, an evacuation operation would endanger the safety of passengers if it is carried out before the weather conditions improve, it is decided that it would be better to wait until the improvement of weather conditions and begin an evacuation operation at early in the morning. Similarly the Coast Guard which is the coordinator of SAR operation also found risky to evacuate the passengers at existing weather conditions.

Following the improving in the weather conditions, at 05.40 a.m. evacuation operation was launched by the marine vehicles belonging to Our Organization and Coast Guard and at 08.05 a.m. evacuation operation was completed with the evacuation of all passengers onboard the vessel.

On 21.04.2015 at 07.00 a.m. as part of the evacuation operation all 39 vehicles onboard the vessel were evacuated as free of damage and rescue efforts have been still continuing with Kurtarma 7, Kurtarma 5 tugboats and Kıyı Emniyeti 2 SAR boat.

On 21.04.2015 at 04.35 p.m. Gökçeada-1 ferry was secured and refloated as a result of the rescue efforts.