MV Salem Express was an Egyptian-French passenger ship that sank in the Red Sea. It is notable due to the heavy loss of life which occurred when she sank shortly after striking a reef at around 11:13pm on December 14, 1991. The majority of passengers were Moroccan-French. Most were returning from pilgrimage to Mecca. The official death toll was 470, though some evidence suggests that the ship was overcrowded and the true death toll may have been much greater, likely more than 1,600. Salem Express was a roll-on/roll-off passenger ferry which operated for 25 years, with many different owners, names and regular routes at that time. The ship was originally named Fred Scamaroni, after a World War II French resistance member who was captured and tortured, killing himself in his cell without revealing his mission. Construction began in June 1963. In November 1964 she was launched and towed to Port-de-Bouc for completion, being finally delivered in June 1965 to the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique, Marseille, France. A fire in her engine room delayed her maiden voyage on June 26, 1966. In June 1966 she began operating on her first route between Marseille and Ajaccio. In January 1967, she collided with the Ajaccio quay; and in April 1970 a fire broke out on the way to Bastia. While operating the Dunkirk – Ramsgate route in 1980, she ran aground, and on another occasion caused a traffic jam due to slow truck loading. In 1988 she was sold to Samatour Shipping Company, Suez, Egypt, and renamed Salem Express; her scheduled route was between Suez and Jeddah.
Final voyage On its final voyage, Salem Express sailed her usual 450-mile (720 km) journey from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to Safaga, Egypt, which took around 36 hours; they intended to unload 350 passengers, before continuing then sailing north to Suez. This route had been the ship's standard schedule since 1988. The ship's departure had been delayed by two days in Saudi Arabia due to a mechanical failure. The night of the sinking was stormy. The majority of passengers were Moroccan-French. Most were returning from pilgrimage to Mecca. Dives to the shipwreck confirm the "holiday" mood of the ship, with luggage packed with gifts for family members. Pilgrims returning from Mecca were dressed in fine clothes to celebrate. The ship ran aground on a coral reef between 6–10 miles (9.7–16.1 km) offshore, after deviating from its planned route. The reef ripped a hole in the forward starboard bow, and knocked open the ship's bow door - allowing seawater into the car deck. RoRo ferries are extremely vulnerable once the car-deck is breached. The official record in Lloyd's Marine Casualties states:
While approaching Safaga at midnight in rough weather, the Master took a short-cut which was not authorised for night passage. The ferry struck a reef and sank within 20 minutes.
Initial reports claimed the ship had drifted off course in the high winds. This was supported by the ship's second officer, Khalid Mamdouh Ahmed, whose job it was to chart the course into the port – claiming no changes had been made. Cairo's state-owned radio quoted Samatour officials as saying the ship had veered off course in bad weather and that attempts had been made, apparently unsuccessfully, to warn it. Egyptian investigators said they had received no reports that the Salem Express deviated from its schedule. However, an alternative belief is that the ship was deliberately taken on a different route by the captain in an attempt at a short-cut, to reduce the travel time by several hours. This was reported by the Al Ahram newspaper. Captain Hassan Moro had commanded the ship since 1988 and was familiar with the waters, and was reportedly known for taking a shortcut between the Hyndman Reef and the coastline from the south, instead around the Panorama Reef from the north. The ship's departure had been delayed due to mechanical problems in Saudi Arabia by two days. Several crew members said the captain was in a hurry, Hassan recalled, and the ship's nurse Hanan Salah said the crew was hurrying in hope of getting a full overnight stop to rest at Safaga before continuing to Suez. This is the most widely reported story in secondary sources.
Sinking The ship was due to make port at 11:30pm. The crew were relaxed and did not anticipate the disaster; Captain Hassan Khalil Moro was resting in his cabin, as was his habit, with the first officer on the bridge. At around 11:13pm, a crash rocked the ship as it ran aground, and began shaking. Very soon after, it began listing to one side, and the lights went out. The captain sounded the distress signal. The ship was underwater in close to 11 minutes, trapping hundreds below deck, and sank entirely within 20 minutes. The speed of the sinking created panic on deck. Only one of the lifeboats was launched. Nurse Salah said there was no time to help people into lifeboats; other survivors complained they had difficulty manning the lifeboats, and that some crew members had pushed them aside to take the boats themselves. Some crew members descended into the ship to knock on cabin doors and rouse passengers; Shaaban abu Siriya, who left his cabin because he heard crew members shouting, said "It just sunk all at once, and I barely had time to get out." The extreme weather made survival in the water more difficult. Rescue attempts on the night were not attempted due to the storm. One survivor found a life raft in the stormy water after four hours clinging to a wooden oar; it was filled with water and three bodies. Along with another man, she rescued 15 people onto the raft – only for it to capsize in the high waves at 7 a.m. Another man described fellow survivors clinging to the same wooden door being swept away by the waves. Ismail Abdel Hassan, an amateur long-distance swimmer who worked as an agricultural engineer, stood on the ship's deck as it sank. He followed the lights of the port and swam to shore, surviving 18 hours in the water. He attempted to lead two other men to safety, who held onto his clothes, but each died of exhaustion on the way.
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