Brazil sinks asbestos-laden ghost aircraft carrier that roamed the Atlantic

The Brazilian Navy has ended up sinking the aircraft carrier ‘Sao Paulo’ in the Atlantic, after the ship, condemned to scrap, spent five months sailing in tow with the damaged case, which in recent weeks became a ghost ship full of toxic waste . “The procedure was conducted with the technical competence and the necessary security” to “avoid logistical, operational, environmental and economic damage to the Brazilian State”, the Brazilian authorities have assured through a statement.

The sinking, which had been authorized by the federal Justice, has been carried out despite the fact that the Brazilian Attorney General’s Office had presented a new appeal on Thursday to prevent it for environmental reasons. The ‘Sao Paulo’ was sold for scrap in 2022 to a Turkish company, but no port accepted it because of the toxic materials she carried in her hull components, and she had not even been able to cross the Strait of Gibraltar and enter in the Mediterranean.

The ‘Sao Paulo’, which has disappeared like a mass of toxic scrap, had a much more dignified origin. At 266 meters in length, with the capacity to accommodate 1,300 crew members and transport 30 fighter-bombers, it was one of the two Clemenceau-class aircraft carriers that France built for its Navy starting in 1957. Launched in 1959, it entered service in 1963 under the name ‘ Foch’ (R-99). Summit with her brother ‘Clemenceau’ (R-98) of the French military naval architecture of the moment, she was then a leading ship.

The ‘Foch’ was withdrawn from service as it was replaced by the much more modern ‘Charles de Gaulle’ and was sold to Brazil, which needed to take over from its aging aircraft carrier ‘Minas Gerais’. The Brazilian Navy incorporated it on November 15, 2000 and it was in service until 2017. During all this time it had to be updated several times and also suffered two serious fires, in 2005 and 2012. In 2017, the Navy announced that the ship it would be demobilized and withdrawn from service, which formally occurred on November 22, 2018, due to the unaffordable cost of the continuous repairs required by the ship.

Although an initiative arose to transform the aircraft carrier into a floating museum, the ship was purchased for scrapping by the Turkish shipyard Sok Denizcilikve Tic, for around $2 million. The ‘Sao Paulo’ was towed from Rio de Janeiro bound for Turkey on August 4 last year. The old aircraft carrier and the Dutch tug of it reached the coast of Morocco on August 26. But when they were going to cross the Strait of Gibraltar, the Turkish Government revoked the permit for the ship to dock in Turkey, after technicians from the Turkish Ministry of the Environment verified that it had many more polluting elements on board than those indicated in the corresponding report. Brazilian. The amounts of asbestos stood out. 9.6 tons had been declared, the technicians estimated that it must contain 600 tons of this and other dangerous materials.

The tugboat had to return with the aircraft carrier to Brazil, where it was also unable to enter any port for the same environmental reasons. Thus, turned into a ghost ship in tow, the ‘Sao Paulo’ has been circling in Brazilian waters for several weeks, off the coast of Pernambuco, until the Turkish company has decided to “cede the hull to Brazil”, as indicated through a note.

In the end, the Brazilian authorities have chosen to sink it some 350 kilometers from the coast. The Brazilian Navy has blamed the Turkish company that had bought it to disassemble it and recycle its materials for not having taken the necessary steps to obtain authorization to tow it to port.