The Viking Sky Cruise Disaster: Vacation Turned Horror...

On the afternoon of March 23, 2019, the cruise ship Viking Sky faced a power outage in a barrage of strong winds, with gusts reaching up to 29 meters per second, while it was in the area of Hustadvika along the Norwegian coast. This power loss caused the ship to lose its ability to move forward and steer. With over 1,300 people aboard, the ship came dangerously close to running aground, which could have resulted in one of the worst maritime disasters in recent history. Here is the inside story.

00:00 Introduction
00:41 The Blackout
08:22 The Aftermath

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[dadadit]

Former Navy Submarine sailor. I went on a cruise ship and was amazed at how clueless the average passenger was to the dangers of having to abandon ship. We participated in the lifeboat drill upon leaving port, no one was paying attention to the crew instruction. I turned to my wife and said, "We are all screwed if this ship ever gets in trouble".

[RepublicD]

The helicopter rescue crews deserve recognition. There were both private and government SAR helicopters dispatched, and they lifted more than 400 people from the ship, one by one, in bad weather conditions throughout the day and night.

[KathleenGreer-hkyl]

I find it amazing that the heavy furniture was not bolted down. A grand piano can kill a person or do serious damage.

[PSpringfield]

Trying to get the story straight. They had a big tank of oil. They kept getting warnings, but didn't feed the oil into the engines. Later when everything shut down, then they decided to try putting oil in the engines. Were the guys in the engine room named Larry, Curley, and Moe?

[tundrawomansays]

The chopper pilots and the others who rendered assistance are the stars here. Thanks to all of you. You are heroes. You didn’t have to welcome the cruise passengers in your town but you did. Thanks.

[daviddixon]

Considering the average age of the passengers appears to be around 82, the rescue from the ship was amazing.

[libertyone]

God bless those chopper pilots AND crew. Truly heroic!

[domainscience]

So the ship left port without an engine working properly or not working at all. I believe that is called stupidity, corporate greed or both.

[ryankenyon]

My dad and stepmother were on that. She still won't set foot on any kind of boat.

[shadypelican]

Reminds me of a tale--a tale of a fateful trip. It started in some tropic port, aboard a tiny ship. The mate was a mighty sailing man. The Skipper? Brave and true. There were five passengers that set sail that day. It was supposed to be a three hour tour. A three hour tour. The weather started getting rough, and the tiny ship was tossed. If not for the courage of the fearless crew, the Minnow would've been lost.

[satriawiraguna]

At least the passengers were lucky to experience how the Vikings sailed the North Sea😂

[pattycoe]

Never a good time for this to happen but better in the day than at night.

[maxhugen]

*"Gusts of 29m/s ..."* For the general public, it would have been far more useful to express this as 56 knots, or 65 mph, or 104 kph. 😎

[TrainerCTZ]

Manually hoist 460 passengers off a cruise ship! That's incredible.

[MiddlePath]

I'm ok. I survived the viking sky.

Granted, I survived by never even considering booking passage and just sitting on the couch. But just so you know, I'm ok.

[ronniemaynor]

Am I being too harsh in saying I perceive serious incompetence among the engineers?

[BiggusD]

I live in this area and remember the incident well. 24 meters per second is not considered "severe weather" here, although 30m/s averages is getting close - at least in March. This stretch of ocean is notorious for challenging conditions, and reefs and islets are scattered all over the place... except for a narrow undersea inlet outside the small village of Hustad, which the Viking Sky drifted into. If the ship drifted 500m to either side, it would have been shattered on rocks long before they got the engines online again.

Which begs the question: why was the Viking Sky so close to the shore? All other big ships go much farther from land when the weather is bad. You've got much more time to react if something go wrong, and the sea is less treacherous. The answer is probably that as a cruise ship you want your passengers to see something - but all they would see in such weather is shades of grey and light blue, covered in clouds and mist/rainfog. It means that they chose to put the ship 20-40 minutes from a catastrophe at any point in their voyage once they skipped Bodø rushing to Stavanger to be on time.

If the ship had run aground, the local communities here are small and can't deal with 1000+ patients at once. There were two helicopters on duty in Southern Norway at the time, and both being occupied with the evacuation meant that helicopters from Sweden and Denmark chipped in as backup in case something else happened. They can only lift one person at a time, so this is a slow process. Even if there were rescue materiel in the area that could have helped with an evacuation (there weren't), the location of the ship meant that this was out of the question. Local volunteers mobilized and set up an emergency hospital, and people brazed themselves for disaster. This is something that is in the back of everyone's mind here. If a floating hotel with 4000, 6000 people on board runs aground on these shores, there is no capacity to deal with it even if one could help.

That's more like a when, not an if, btw.

[scottymac]

Luxury ocean liners used to be built for three things.
To go fast, be safe, and be comfortable. Through the North Atlantic. These Luxury Cruise ships floating today are top heavy death traps if caught out in severe weather.

[adriannegrillo]

Considering the reports prior to them leaving, they shouldn't have left the original port

[NClark-lpbq]

I just like how at 9-minutes you say "the bridge team" and show a bunch of passengers playing cards lol.