One cargo ship crew member has died after a fire broke out on the car-carrying freighter Fremantle Highway off the Dutch coast.
A cargo ship carrying almost 3000 cars has reportedly caught fire off the coast of the Netherlands, leaving at least one crew member dead and several others injured.
As reported by Automotive News Europe, the ship – registered in Panama as the ‘Fremantle Highway’ – was on its way from Germany to Egypt when a fire broke out in the cargo hold on Wednesday 26 July.
According to the publication, one crew member has been confirmed dead while ‘several’ more were injured after jumping overboard into the North Sea.
While the publication reports the ship’s owner has attributed the blaze to an electric car catching fire, officials are yet to investigate the source of the inferno as firefighting crews are still attempting to put the flames out.
The Dutch coastguard claims 25 of the 2857 vehicles on the ship were electric cars.
A spokesperson for Mercedes-Benz told Automotive News Europe the Fremantle Highway was carrying 350 of its cars, though it is not yet known what other brands were onboard.
Het kustwachtvliegtuig heeft beelden gemaakt van het schip Fremantle Highway. Updates over dit incident staan op ons liveblog (evenals het ????beeld voor de media): https://t.co/gWwfcKau0z pic.twitter.com/5725cNodUh
— Kustwacht Nederland (@Kustwacht_nl) July 26, 2023
The fatal car-carrying ship fire is the second to occur this month, following the death of two firefighters in Newark, New Jersey who were battling a blaze on the Grande Costa d’Avorio – which was holding 1200 vehicles, none of which were electric-powered.
It also follows the highly-publicised Felicity Ace incident in February 2022, which made headlines worldwide when its shipment of Volkswagen Group cars – such as Porsches, Audis, Bentleys, and Volkswagens – caught fire in the Atlantic Ocean.
Reportedly sparked by a Porsche Taycan electric-car, the ship eventually sunk approximately 405km from the Portuguese coastline – with the approximately 4000 cars on-board going down with it.
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