In February 1986, in the Strait named after Cook, off the coast of New Zealand, a shipwreck occurred: the Soviet ship "Mikhail Lermontov" sank, on which there were more than seven hundred and fifty people. Fortunately, the number of victims was small. The accident of the ship "Mikhail Lermontov" claimed the life of only one member of the crew - refrigeration plant engineer Pavel Zaglyadimov. He worked in the compartment that was flooded almost immediately after the accident. Eleven people received injuries of varying degrees of severity.
General information
The death of the ship "Mikhail Lermontov" occurred thirty years ago. Investigative measures for this disaster lasted more than one month, they were carried out not only in our country, but also abroad. However, until today there is no accurate picture of what happened. Was the accident of the ship "Mikhail Lermontov" a tragic coincidence, or was its wreck still someone's malicious intent?
This Soviet eight-deck passenger liner was one of the most successful ships built under Project 301. It was designed for seven hundred and fiftypassengers. The ship "Mikhail Lermontov" was built at the shipyards in Wismar in 1972. He was named after the great Russian poet.
Only a few of the then elite traveled on this liner in those years. Photos of the ship "Mikhail Lermontov" were often published in the Western press. It was by him that ordinary people abroad judged how the people live in the Soviet Union. However, it was impossible for most of the population of our country to get on board. However, it turned out that many ordinary residents of the Soviet Union did not even know that there was such a ship - "Mikhail Lermontov".
Project 588
Very few people know that this luxurious liner in the USSR had a "brother" with the same name. It was built as part of the project number 588 and was part of the passenger fleet of the Volga River Shipping Company. The ship "Mikhail Lermontov", which was originally called "Kazbek", traditionally served only Astrakhan tourists, performing multi-day cruises to Moscow and Leningrad. Unlike its more famous counterpart, this three-deck river liner went into navigation for the last time in 1993, and in 2000 it was cut into pieces.
Successful propaganda campaign
In 1962, after the Caribbean crisis, when the international situation warmed up noticeably, the Soviet government took several steps to build bridges between West and East. Soviet-Canadian relations began to improve the liner "Alexander Pushkin", cruising along thislines. The ship "Mikhail Lermontov", in turn, had to master the tours of the USSR - the USA. It was considered a successful propaganda project of the Soviet government. In fact, the ship carried out diplomatic work, successfully advertising our Soviet life in the West.
In New York, on the day of its arrival, more than five hundred journalists boarded to write in the morning that the ship "Mikhail Lermontov" marked the end of the Cold War with its horns. Americans began to actively buy tickets for our liner. The ship, which became a serious competitor for many Western cruise analogues, soon became known in the international passenger transportation market.
Atmosphere on the boat
When the American line was closed due to certain circumstances, the Ministry of Marine, drawing attention to the large flows of passengers moving between England and Australia, sent the ship "Mikhail Lermontov" to the Southern Hemisphere. Photos of the ship "Mikhail Lermontov", which made seven round-the-world voyages, could be seen in the press of various countries. He sailed from London, visited many of the most beautiful corners in the world and again returned to the English capital, however, from the other side. They say that the atmosphere on the liner was amazing. The ship seemed to be a small state where ordinary life flowed, people fell in love, got married and even died on it.
Ten days - a tour on "Mikhail Lermontov" - cost seven hundred US dollars. The British joked that living on this Sovietsometimes they are cheaper on a ship than living on land. And I must say that Western cruise companies did not like this circumstance, so they repeatedly undertook various kinds of provocations. And therefore, there was more than one version that the ship "Mikhail Lermontov" sank off the coast of New Zealand not by accident, but by someone's malicious intent.
Last flight: chronicle
On February 16, 1986, at three o'clock in the afternoon, the Soviet eight-deck luxury liner left New Zealand's Picton. The ship "Mikhail Lermontov", whose last voyage was interrupted at the exit from the Queen Charlotte Strait, was carrying four hundred and eight passengers and three hundred and thirty crew members. About an hour and a half later, the captain went down to his cabin. His place on the bridge was taken by the navigator of the watch, with whom were the second assistant captain, the New Zealand pilot and two sailors. On the radio, passengers were told about local attractions. At the request of the New Zealand pilot, the ship's course was laid closer to the shore. At half past five, the ship set out on its course into the open ocean.
Unexpectedly, the pilot ordered the crew to turn the rudder ten degrees to the left. The watch officer repeated what was said, and the liner, changing course, entered a very narrow strait located between Cape Jackson and the Walkers Rock lighthouse. Gusev, the second assistant to the captain, reported that breakers were visible on the water.
When asked why the course was changed, the New Zealand pilot explained to the watch navigator S. Stepanishchev that it allows passengers to see the beautyCape Jackson.
At seventeen hours and thirty-eight minutes, the ship "Mikhail Lermontov" sailed into the strait at a speed of fifteen knots. Two and a half hours after leaving the port of Picton, the ship approached one of the cliffs so close that, according to the stories, one could reach out and reach the branch of a tree growing on the rock of the headland. But at that moment, the helmsman managed to back up and turn around.
But suddenly the ship crashed into an underwater rock at full speed. The ship "Mikhail Lermontov", a photo from the bottom of which indicates numerous damages, received a hole twelve meters long. In addition, the watertight bulkheads were damaged as a result of the accident. But by inertia, the ship continued to move forward. Captain Vorobyov, who immediately appeared on the bridge, took control and decided to throw the liner onto a sandbank located in Port Gor Bay.
Alarm
Passengers did not suspect anything at the time of the collision. They gathered in the music room of the Mikhail Lermontov liner. The ship, the accident of which claimed the life of one person, at seventeen forty-five already had a five-degree roll. An alarm was immediately raised. The captain on the bridge was informed that the watertight doors had been battened down. But it did not help. Water began to flow into the refrigerator compartment, into the gym, food pantries, a laundry and a printing house were sunk. She began to seep through and poorly locked watertight doors to the engine room.
Bsix hours and twenty minutes, when the emergency team tried to close the locks, the list of the ship was already more than ten degrees. The captain had no choice but to give the order to prepare rescue equipment. He received a report on the bridge that the main switchboard, which supplies power, was flooded with water. As a result, the main engines were urgently stopped, and therefore the electricity was lost. At seven o'clock ten minutes the list of the ship reached twelve degrees, and therefore the captain ordered everyone to leave the engine room.
The crew immediately began to evacuate all passengers. Managed to save almost everyone. Many of the cruise participants, most of whom were in old age, had to be carried in their arms in the truest sense of the word. Later it turned out that Pavel Zaglyadimov, a refrigerator mechanic, was not among the survivors. According to eyewitnesses, during the accident, he was in the bow of the sinking ship and was busy with something at his workplace. A version was put forward that he was stunned by a blow, and he died as a result.
Details of the sinking of the ship
February 16, 1986 was an overcast day. The ship's captain V. Vorobyov and the New Zealand pilot Jemison from the port of Picton were on the bridge in the morning. No one doubted the professional qualities of the invited specialist. He was one of three pilots who were granted a patent allowing large vessels to navigate the waterways of Fiordland, New Zealand's rugged national park.fjords for which the Tasman Sea is famous. But after all, it was this experienced and competent specialist who made the strange decision to navigate an eight-deck Soviet motor ship through a narrow strait between a rocky shoal and Cape Jackson. Later, during the investigation, Jemison stated that this happened spontaneously. He allegedly did not want to miss the opportunity to show passengers near the beauty of both Cape Jackson itself and its lighthouse on the north side of the entrance to the strait.
The technical side of the disaster
The sinking of the ship "Mikhail Lermontov" caused a mixed reaction. Many Western newspapermen tried to make money on this tragedy, apparently by fulfilling someone's order. First of all, the reliability of Soviet ships was questioned, in particular, their insufficient technical equipment. For example, the British "Times" claimed that even the rescue boats on the "Mikhail Lermontov" were so rusty that passengers could pierce them the bottom with their feet, and the warning lights on the vests were not lit.
Of course, all this hype had nothing to do with reality. Based on the Paris Memorandum, established in 1982 to coordinate the actions of European countries to monitor the implementation of international navigation safety standards by foreign ships, literally a year before the ship was lost, in June 1985, it was checked in Hammerfest by an international commission, the conclusion of which was unequivocal. The experts found that the vessel was in good condition and issued a certificate to it. Moreover, in December of the same 1985, the liner underwent another check, but already inAustralia. The captain received a document stating that there were no comments on the technical equipment.
And one more thing: according to the same Paris memorandum, the relevant port services simply would not have set sail any faulty ship, including the ship "Mikhail Lermontov". As for the rusty boats and defective signal lights, the ship had a complete set of boats made of fiberglass or metal alloys of very high strength. Therefore, rumors about leaky lifeboats were not true. The signal lights did not light up, because they only start to glow when they are in the water. Based on this, we can conclude that the version of the technical malfunction of the ship is no longer valid.
Dangerous competition
In the GDR, at the shipyards in the city of Wismar, the Mikhail Lermontov was built for several years - a motor ship, under water on which you can still read: "The home port is the city of Leningrad and the B altic Shipping Company." Equipped with modern equipment, this cruise ship immediately found itself at the forefront among all passenger ships of the Soviet Ministry of the Navy.
The captain of the liner was appointed the most experienced sailor Aram Mikhailovich Oganov, who did not go on that fateful voyage for a good reason. The ship sailed around the world more than once. It was quite in demand among foreign tourists who willingly bought tours to travel on this Soviet ship. The reason wasnot only cheaper than Western companies, ticket prices, but also a high level of service.
The version related to competition was also considered by the investigation, not only in our country, but also abroad. The captain of the Mikhail Lermontov said at the trial that he had repeatedly received verbal and written threats, in addition, incomprehensible incidents occurred more than once with the vessel, up to the discovery of a magnetic mine without a fuse on the bottom.
During the last flight, Oganov was on vacation. He believes that the death of the liner was the fault of the pilot. The place of the death of the ship "Mikhail Lermontov" for many years working specialist should have been familiar. In addition, according to the captain, the ship sank at a distance of eight hundred meters from the shore at a depth of only thirty-three meters. And such a death, according to Oganov, cannot be accidental.
The riddle of the pilot
Jamison disappeared from the press immediately after being brought ashore on a rescue boat. And he appeared only at the very beginning of the investigation, organized by the New Zealand Ministry of Transport. He said that he was very tired that day, because he had not rested for several days. In addition, as the investigation found out, the pilot was drinking vodka and beer just an hour and a half before the Mikhail Lermontov went to sea. It was not possible to prove his direct guilt, and today Jemison is the captain of a small vessel transporting livestock from Wellington to Picton and back.
Return Home
AfterThe death of the ship "Mikhail Lermontov" Russians abandoned passenger traffic in this region forever. Moreover, not a single cruise ship appeared off the coast of New Zealand for five years.
The sailors who managed to save more than four hundred drowning passengers were not welcomed at home with open arms. Exhausted people went to the Soviet Union almost under escort.
"Mikhail Lermontov": punishment of marauders
Some months after the disaster, one of the ship's masts, sticking out of the waters of the Cook Strait, resembled a hand asking for help. And although it was quite possible to lift this expensive ship out of the water, perestroika was beginning in the USSR, and therefore there was no time for a ship that had sunk far in the other hemisphere. But divers got there. The ship "Mikhail Lermontov" is still being robbed. Although it must be said that work was also carried out at the state level: first, fuel was downloaded from its tanks, and then, as with the Titanic, a ship safe was lifted from it, in which there were jewelry of we althy foreign passengers. Gold and diamonds were returned to their owners, and a ship's bell was sent to Leningrad, which was cut by scuba divers.
A luxury liner that sank off the coast at a fairly shallow depth, a year later, local residents began to rob. Interestingly, there are rumors here that the ship severely punishes uninvited marauders. Over the past few decades, three scuba divers have died near the Mikhail Lermontov, whose bodies have never been found…
