Brazil’s last aircraft carrier lies on the seabed after an incredible odyssey that lasted six months and included a crossing of the Atlantic and back in tow. A ship has traveled around 15,000 kilometers, which can be summed up in numbers: 265 meters long, 33,000 tons in weight and the capacity to transport 40 aircraft. Guarded by a frigate, it lay directly off the coast of Recife (Pernambuco). The largest ship in the Brazilian fleet was pure junk. An environmental bomb with tons of asbestos and other toxic components. Disposing of the remains of the aircraft carrier São Paulo – the hull, the engine room… – was a real nightmare for the Brazilian Navy. That Friday afternoon, he sank it 350 kilometers out to sea, in an area more than 5,000 meters deep. Military divers placed the explosives used to detonate it in Brazilian waters on the border with international waters.
The ship could no longer anchor; it was so derelict that it would perish. After half a year, it barely stayed afloat without finding a port that would accept it for scrapping. The helmet “is ready to receive the explosive charges,” said defense journalist Valter Andrade, part of a network following the crisis minute by minute, hours earlier by phone from Pernambuco. The veteran photojournalist was particularly concerned about the engine room, which concentrates the toxic elements. The effects of controlled demolitions can be devastating for the environment, critics have warned. “It could be a mini Chernobyl,” said Andrade. Already during the night he described the sinking as “irresponsible”.
The NGO Basel Action Network even appealed to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who did not respond. His first month in power was extremely eventful, with a coup and the sudden dismissal of the army chief. And now the aircraft carrier, the largest and last of its fleet.
“We urge President Lula, as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, to stop this devastating plan immediately,” said Jim Puckett, director of the NGO dedicated to monitoring the movement of toxic materials, in a statement. “When the Navy dumps this highly toxic ship into the wild depths of the Atlantic Ocean, it violates three environmental treaties.”
The size of the crowd suggests that a crew of almost two thousand seamen was required. The case of São Paulo underscores the complexity of recycling warships or other large vessels. And it shows that sometimes cheap is expensive.
But let’s go back to the beginning. This is a used ship that Brazil bought from France in 2000. It was launched in 1959 under the Foch name and was at a very good price. The current vicissitudes are less surprising to those who knew that there was a sister ship, the Clemenceau, of the French Navy that also went through several countries because of asbestos. It ended up in a British shipyard.
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The Brazilian’s road to scrapping really started to go wrong last August. The Turkish company Sök Denizcilik had bought it for two million dollars (1.9 million euros) to be dismantled at a shipyard in their country. Pulled by a tugboat, the aircraft carrier headed east until, just before entering the Strait of Gibraltar and in the heat of a campaign by environmentalists, the decision was made to change its final destination. Turkey withdrew the docking permit after being alerted by the Basel Action Network and other NGOs working to ensure the ships’ disposal is sustainable. The first estimated it was transporting 300 tons of hazardous materials.
“The most surprising moment for me was when I saw the aircraft carrier turn around and go back to Brazil,” admits another journalist, Jorge de Souza, who recounts the odyssey in detail in his column Histórias do Mar in UOL. “Sources told me I could return, but I knew it was a complex and very expensive operation.” Laws and treaties regulate the end of life of these ships.
After being sold to the Turkish company, the São Paulo underwent a partial inspection that found almost ten tons of asbestos in the structure. “Eighty times less than its sister ship,” says De Souza. Several environmental NGOs organized a campaign for Turkey to deny him entry. It was like this. The news hit him at the gates of Gibraltar. In accordance with the law, he undertook the return to Brazil.
For the next three months, its owners let it sail in circles off the port of Suape (Pernambuco, Lula’s home state, by the way) waiting for the Navy to authorize docking. Permission never came. Sök Denizcilik ended up spending an unexpected fortune. And he got fed up. He stopped paying for the tugboat, the insurance and got rid of the aircraft carrier.
The Navy came to the rescue two weeks ago and once again took control of the ship, stressing that the company that owns it is not absolved of responsibility. Towed by a military tug and closely guarded by the frigate União, it was put to sea. Meanwhile, authorities were looking for a solution to this delusional headache involving a ship that suffered an explosion years ago that killed three sailors.
The mole is an environmental hazard and a risk to other boats operating in the area. The last few days have been hectic. The Department of Defense claimed there was no viable alternative to controlled demolitions, while environmental monitoring agency Ibama pointed out that this decision went against the opinion of its technicians and asked the military for information to “evaluate alternatives to mitigate, repair and secure the environment.” after the eventual shipwreck”.
Emerson Miura is also following the crisis minute by minute. He even tried to bid for the ship because it was his dream to moor the São Paulo to turn it into a museum like they do in the United States, he says. The plan, pursued for years with his now-deceased wife, was to preserve a historical legacy and rewrite the history of the aircraft carrier. Or, as this former aviator who runs the Sao Paulo/Foch Institute puts it, it was “to save the Navy’s reputation.” He wanted to open it up to visitors, make it a tourist attraction and a pole of economic development.
The ship’s unfortunate end marries a career that was pretty much useless to the Brazilian Navy. “In his 17 years of service, he has not sailed even a year. It suffered from several problems because it was outdated. It was almost a donation from France. Even then, they agreed on what the destruction would look like, in a certified shipyard, etc… I think they breathed a sigh of relief at the Navy when they sold it,” says journalist De Souza. Those connoisseurs of the sister ship’s predecessor might have knocked on wood.
For the past few days, a light aircraft has flown over the aircraft carrier every morning and afternoon to inspect it, reveals photojournalist Andrade. He was also on a mission to film the explosion and how the sea swallowed up the last aircraft carrier in Brazil. The Navy reported the sinking in a note paying “legitimate homage to the former São Paulo airfield ship.”
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