A cargo ship reportedly carrying 4,000 luxury cars has sunk in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean after catching fire.
As reported by Bloomberg, the ship - named Felicity Ace - had covered more than 220 miles off the coast of the Azores and was carrying thousands of luxury automobiles by Porsche, Lamborghini, VW, Bentley, and Audi.
Almost two weeks after the 60,000-tonne Felicity Ace was hit by a devastating onboard fire, the Portuguese navy has revealed that the 656 foot-long vessel has been claimed by the Atlantic.
Per The Independent, the ship submerged at around 9:00AM on Tuesday, with a statement from the Navy stating: "This morning, during the towing process, which had begun on Feb 24, the ship ‘Felicity Ace’ lost stability and sank some 25 nautical miles outside of the limits of Portugal’s exclusive economic zone, in an area with a depth of about [9,842 feet]."
The outlet adds that the total value of the cars onboard was an estimated $401 million (£295 million).
After originally catching fire on February 16, the 22 crew members were safely evacuated thanks to assistance from commercial ships and helicopters.
In fact, automotive YouTuber Matt Farah - who is behind the channel 'The Smoking Tire' on the video-sharing platform - tweeted at the time that he had been contacted by his car dealer and informed that the car he had ordered was aboard the ship.
"My car is now adrift, possibly on fire, in the middle of the ocean," Farah tweeted.
Reuters reported that captain Joao Mendes Cabecas of the port of Hortas said that the lithium-ion batteries in the luxury electric cars had helped to stoke the fire. However, the original cause for the fire is not known.
After the fire was extinguished on February 25, a salvage team attempted to tow what was left of the ship back to land. However, they were unsuccessful, and the ship has now sunk.
Pat Adamson, a spokesperson for the Felicity Ace’s operator, MOL Ship Management, told Bloomberg that the team had been battling "pretty rough" weather, although he did admit that it was a "surprise" that the ship sunk.
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