The SS Heraklion was a car ferry operating the lines Piraeus – Chania and Piraeus – Irakleio between 1965 and 1966. The ship capsized and sank on 8 December 1966 in the Aegean Sea, resulting in the death of over 200 people.
At 8.00 pm on the evening of 7 December 1966, and under extreme weather conditions, with winds blowing at Force 9 on the Beaufort scale, the Heraklion sailed from Souda Bay, Crete for Piraeus, after a two-hour delay, allegedly in order to embark a refrigerator truck that according to most accounts contributed to the sinking. Nowadays, passenger ships operating in Greek waters are prohibited from sailing in winds at or greater than Force 9 on the Beaufort scale, but at that time it was up to the captain to decide whether to sail or not, sometimes under pressure from the ship owners.
Halfway through the voyage, while sailing south of the small rocky island of Falkonera, the aforementioned refrigerator truck which was carrying oranges and was either left unsecured or was loosely strapped, started banging on the midship loading door which eventually gave in and opened with the result that the truck plummeted into the sea where it was found floating the next morning. With the doors opened, the sea flowed in and after 15 or 20 minutes the ship capsized, sometime after 2:00am on 8 December 1966, at 36°52′N 24°8′E.
At 02:06am, an SOS signal from Heraklion was received by various shore stations and ships around the Aegean Sea.
THROWBACKTHISDAY; makes it 49 years and TBT Blog remembers.
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