As we reported two weeks ago, on June 3 the 600-foot Liberian-flagged car carrier Morning Midas, with 3,169 cars aboard, including 730 electric vehicles, caught fire 250 miles southwest of Alaska. It was en route from China to Mexico.
The 22 crew aboard fought the fire until there was no hope and then abandoned ship. They were rescued by the nearby container ship Costco Hellas. The fire, based on crew reports, was most likely caused by damaged lithium batteries in one or more of the EVs.
The sea-going tug Gretchen Dunlap was deployed with a salvage crew aboard and has been standing by near the stricken ship waiting for the weather to clear. The area has had repeated storms over the last two weeks creating dangerous seas.
On Monday, June 23, Zodiac Marine, the shipping company managing Morning Midas, announced that due to water ingress caused by the fire and heavy seas the 600-foot ship had sunk.
“Morning Midas sank at around 16.35 local time zone (UTC -9) on 23 June, in waters approximately 5,000 meters deep and 360 nautical miles from land,” the manager company said in its statement.
Aside from the cars, the ship was also carrying 1530 tons of low sulfur bunker fuel (diesel) and 350 tons of gasoline. At a depth of around 18,000 feet, there is no hope of environmental remediation so all of the fuel will eventually enter the North Pacific’s ecosystem.
This is the second car carrier to sink due to what is suspected to be a fire aboard caused by damaged lithium batteries. In 2022, the car carrier Felicity Ace loaded with 4,000 luxury cars, including Lamborghinis, Bentleys and Porsches, caught fire 90 miles from the Azores Islands and its crew was forced to abandon ship. Efforts to save the ship failed and the Felicity Ace sank.
Read the first Cruising Odyssey article on the Morning Midas fire here.
