The freighter sinks off the Bulgarian coast story ended around midnight on October 28, when the Contship Jet went under after three drone boat hits 21 nautical miles southeast of Shabla in Bulgaria’s exclusive economic zone. The 18 sailors aboard had already left the ship by 12:13 p.m. local time, and all survived.
The vessel was headed from Haifa, Israel, to Constanta with 421 containers aboard when the alert reached Bulgaria from Romania’s maritime rescue center in Constanta at 12:01 p.m. local time. Bulgaria’s Ministry of Transport and Communications said the crew then abandoned ship in just 12 minutes.
Bulgarian Navy and Border Police
The Bulgarian Navy sent the corvette Reshitelni, the rescue vessel Proteo, and a fast boat with hull number 223. A Border Police ship also headed out. By 12:53, eight sailors were aboard a Navy boat and the other ten were riding in the ship’s own lifeboat, before a Navy ship carried the crew to the port of Varna.
The ship was 524 feet long, 81 feet wide, and rated for 1,267 standard 20-foot containers. It had a deadweight of about 19,960 tons and had been built in Spain nearly 20 years ago. The Contship Jet was carrying lithium-ion batteries, acids and other corrosives, ethanol and other flammable liquids, household chemicals, plastics, food, building supplies, lumber, and machinery parts.
Kiril Mihaylov and the containers
Kiril Mihaylov said that evening that 20 of the ship’s containers had already gone over the side. That detail matters because the cargo mix included materials that can complicate salvage and containment once a hull takes repeated hits and starts losing deck cargo.
The ship ran on marine gas oil, while the Maritime Administration said it does not expect a spill to reach the Bulgarian coast. Bulgaria’s Environment Ministry said the vessel was carrying cargo to a NATO port, and the ship was the fifth merchant vessel hit by drones in Bulgaria’s exclusive economic zone since early October.
The ship sank despite the fact that all 18 sailors escaped alive and nobody was hurt, which is why the attack is now being assessed as much for what it did not kill as for the vessel it put on the seabed. Bulgarian maritime authorities said the sinking was confirmed on October 29, leaving the damage assessment, cargo recovery, and any attribution for the drone boats unanswered.
