The Brazilian aircraft carrier “São Paulo” was sunk in the open sea, 350 kilometers from the coast and at a depth of 5,000 metres. The Brazilian navy announced that it had sunk it in the Atlantic Ocean together with its cargo of asbestos, paint and other toxic waste.The announcement provoked protests from environmental organizations.
The “planned and controlled shipwreck was accomplished late in the day” yesterday, according to a navy statement. The disputed decision was taken because there were no alternatives, given “the very degraded state of this old 266-metre long ship, considered a “toxic package of 30,000 tons” by the Robin Hood association.
Danger in motion
“Faced with the risks involved in towing it and due to the deterioration of the hull, the only solution is to abandon ship by sinking it in a controlled way,” the navy explained in a joint statement with the Defense Ministry in recent days. Brazil’s federal prosecutor has tried to stop the operation through several appeals filed in the courts, warned of the consequences for the environment and recalled that the aircraft carrier contains 9.6 tons of asbestos, 644 tons of inks and other materials dangerous: the risk, he underlined, is of “serious environmental damage, above all due to the fact that the hull is damaged”.
Environmental NGOs Greenpeave, Sea Shepherd and Basel Action Network denounced “a violation of three international treaties”. Environmental organizations stress that this shipwreck will cause “incalculable damage” with “impacts on marine life and coastal communities”.
In the beginning it was French
The vessel, Foch, built in the late 1950s at the Saint-Nazaire shipyard in western France, served the French Navy for 37 years before being purchased in 2000 by Brazil. Due to obsolescence and problems related to a fire that occurred in 2005, as well as the excessively high costs that a modernization would have entailed, Brasilia has decided to discard it.
Purchased from a Turkish shipyard to use the metal in 2021, Brazil had agreed to transport her to the Mediterranean, but Turkish environmental authorities decided they did not want to receive her when she was already near the Strait of Gibraltar. At that point the ship was forced to turn back, although the hull damage had worsened in the meantime. On 19 January, the Dutch tug ALP Guard, hired by the Turkish shipyard, abandoned the Brazilian coast after several months off the coast of the Pernambouc region. The intervention of the navy was therefore requested, which opted for the planned sinking.
Military career
In 1978 Foch was deployed in the Red Sea to protect the independence of Djibouti during Operation Sapphire II. In 1983-84, you participated in the Olifant mission in support of the French contingent deployed in Lebanon, with an air component of six F-8 Crusaders, fifteen Super Étendards, three Étendard IVs, five Breguet Br 1050 Alizés, and six SA- 321G Super Frelon. In October 1984 the Foch was sent off the Libyan coast on the occasion of the tensions in the Gulf of Sidra.
From 1993 to 1999 it was regularly engaged in the Adriatic in operations Balbuzard, Salamander and Trident in the framework of the French commitment in the former Yugoslavia under the UNPROFOR, SFOR and KFOR missions, under the command of the UN and NATO, ensuring the security of French forces ashore.
