AIS Animation Shows Suez Canal Mayhem After Ship Grounds

On 15 July 2018, container ship Aeneas ran aground in the Suez Canal during a southbound transit.

As a result of the grounding, the Panamax Alexander, Sakizaya Kalon and Osios David also ran into each other in convoy heading southbound through the canal.

The Aeneas was the 20th ship out of 27 in the convoy.

The ships behind in the convoy avoided striking the grounded Aeneas, but instead hit each other leading to the southern part of the channel being closed for several hours.

The Osios David sailed to Suez, while the Panamax Alexander and the Sakizaya Kalon were towed and anchored to the Great Bitter Lake. While the Panamax Alexander was being pulled to the Great Bitter Lake, it collided, once again, with the container ship NYK Orpheus (shown in video below).

The video above, provided by Genscape Vesseltracker, was created using AIS ship tracking data. The left side of the split screen shows the Aeneas grounding, while the right side shows the pile-up to the north.