Here's something I've been wondering all day, and maybe some of you old Navy salts with some savvy on the matter could chime in: is there any chance - any chance at all - that this ship ran into one of those old World War II mines we sometimes read about, or maybe something similar of more recent vintage left over from some Middle Eastern conflict at one time or another?
I have the feeling that the possibility's remote, and that, in the end, it'll turn out to have been something to do with the weather - which was reported to be bad - and the fact that this craft looks extremely "top heavy" to my (admittedly untutored) eye. But... I mean, after all, comparable ships sail all the time, and this one had been in service for decades without a mishap. So why now?
From the apparent suddenness of the sinking, indicated by the absence of a Mayday and the scarcity of survivors, it seems like something catastrophic and unexpected occurred. So... absent deliberate sabotage, that's why I'm wondering about some form of out-dated ordnance.
Any comments? Anyone?
Maybe a bilge or ballast pump failed, and they were unable to either trim the ship properly for the heavy seas or they were unable to get rid of excess water they shipped, again due to heavy seas. In the ferry boat sinking I described in Post 32, it was speculated that a pump failure may have been the cause. I had duty that night, and I remember standing on ther flight deck earlier in the day watching that little boat swoop up and down like a bathtub toy on the waves and thinking that I was glad I wasn't on board that thing.