Israel’s 25,000-ton luxury liner, the Shalom, crashed into a Norwegian tanker today in a pre-dawn accident, slicing the tanker in two and tearing a huge hole in its own bow.
None of the 600 passengers or the crew of 460 officers and men on the liner was injured in the crash, but at least 16 members of the Norwegian crew of the Stolt Dagali died in the accident, which occurred in thick fog off the New Jersey coast three and-a-half hours after the Shalom left New York harbor for a Caribbean cruise.
Before the Shalom turned around and began limping back to New York port, it lowered lifeboats and took five of the tanker crew aboard, as a flotilla of other ships and helicopters swarmed into the area to pick up tanker crew members. The Shalom then proceeded to its pier here under its own power.
Officials of Zim, operators of the liner, said that hotel and other accommodations were provided for the 600 passengers. The ship had been scheduled to make a series of nine Caribbean cruises.
Information on the cost of repairing the damage to the $20,000,000 French-built Shalom, and how long it would be out of service, awaited an examination of the broken hull by ship engineers.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
