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The ' M/S ''Jan Heweliusz''' was a Polish ferry named after the astronomer Johannes Hevelius (). Built in Norway in 1977, the ferry served on the route Ystad-Świnoujście until 1993. The ferry was involved in several accidents before the final disaster; the night between the 13th and 14th of January 1993 it capsized and subsequently sank off the coast of Rügen in the Baltic Sea, leaving 54 people dead.
9 crew members survived the accident while there were no survivors among passengers.

Contents

Parameters

The accident

Victims

See also

External links

Parameters

★ Length 126 m

★ Width 17 m

★ Speed 17 knots

★ Cargo 2500 tons (up to 47 trucks)

The accident

During a 12 B storm at the Baltic Sea, the ship started listing at 4:10 am on Jan 14, 1993. It capsized at 5:12. The waves were up to 6 meters high. The wind was 180 km/h. The ship took to the sea due to busy cargo traffic. It was two hours late at departure.
The ferry had previously experienced a total of 28 accidents. It was listing, crashing with fishing boats, sufferred an engine failure, and in 1986 it was on fire.
The accident took lives of 20 sailors and 35 truck drivers. 9 mariners were rescued. 10 bodies were never found. There were 10 railway cars aboard from 5 European countries.
The causes of the accident were determined as: poor technical shape of the ship and, controversially, captain's errors.
The ship was owned by PLO (Polish Oceanliners) and operated by its daughter company: PLO EuroAfrica.
The wreck rests at 30 meter depth at the bottom of the Baltic Sea off Cape Arcona.

Victims

Crew: Andrzej Ułasiewicz (Captain), Tomasz Brudnicki, Kazimierz Choszcz, Mieczysław Ostrzyniewski, Stanisław Pacek, Leszek Pyciński, Teresa Sienkiewicz, Marek Behrendt, Ryszard Cikota, Roger Janicki (1st officer), Andrzej Korzeniowski, Tadeusz Łastowski, Józef Noga, Paweł Sobociński, Janusz Subicki, Bronisław Szychta, Kazimierz Szpilman, Janusz Szydłowski, Zenon Wawrzak (Chief Engineer), Mirosław Kolberg.
Passengers: Lars Börje Lenartsson, Per Martens, Henryk Owczarczyk, Erwin Pappenscheller, Ryszard Pałka, Władysław Półtorak, Jochan Reischer, Istvan Small, Witold Staszkiewicz, Zdzisław Sosnowski, Michaly Warga, Radka Milena Vasić, Małgorzata Gajowska, Dymitr Vasić, Ferenc Vegh, Peter Weissenbacher, Ingvar Andersson, Lajos Balzas, Vaclaw Condil, Josef Furulyas, Czesław Gorlewski, Ingvar Kjell Håkansson, Witold Krawczyk, Bo Karlsson, Agnieszka Goldman, Marek Kośny, Barbara Zaborska, Conny Irskog, Sylwia Eichert, Karol Eichert, Andrzej Kozłowski, Roy Halvorssen, Witold Greda, Zdenek Jurik, Peter Olsson.

See also

★ ORP Heweliusz

★ List of RORO vessel accidents

External links

★ Underwater pictures of the Jan Heweliusz wreck