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Turkey’s navy has found the wreck of th Tugberk Imamoglu, a coastal freighter that sank last week after a collision with a product tanker in the Sea of Marmara. 10 crewmembers of the lost cargo ship remain missing, and surface search efforts are ongoing; now that the hull has been found on the bottom, some 900 meters below the surface, additional efforts could be put into recovering the ship’s VDR or searching the wreck site for remains.
At about 0300 hours on the morning of September 2, the Tugberk Imamoglu was operating about 18 miles to the souh of Silivri, a town west of Istanbul on the Sea of Marmara. The tanker Alsu was under way nearby; early reports in Turkish media suggest that a new third mate was on watch on the tanker’s bridge while the captain slept. It appears that there was no lookout on duty aboard Alsu, leaving the third mate to make all assessments on his own.
In the minutes leading up to the casualty, the two vessels’ watchstanders appear to have been aware of each other and made passing arrangements over VHF. Due to circumstances that remain under investigation, they collided at 0315 hours. The freighter, laden with a cargo of rolled steel, capsized quickly. Alsu was undamaged.
FULL ARTICLE AVAILABLE HERE: maritime-executive.com
