The ime with the hull of the former aircraft carrier São Paulo seems to be coming to an end. In t note presented on Wednesday (01), the Brazilian Navy, the Ministry of Defense and the Attorney General's Office claim that the sinking of the old Aerodrome Ship (NAe) is inevitable, given the conditions of the vessel's hull.
The 33-ton ship left Brazil in August 2022 after being purchased by the Turkish shipyard SÖK DENIZCILIK TIC.VE LTD (SÖK) for BRL 10,5 million. The ship, manufactured in , would then be dismantled and sold as scrap metal.
However, protests by environmental groups in Turkey led the Ministry of the Environment of that country to prohibit the entry of the NAe São Paulo, causing the ship and its tug to turn around, returning to Brazil. The reason would be the huge amount of asbestos present on the vessel, about 9,6 tons of the toxic product, whose sale in Brazil was only prohibited in 2017.
Upon arriving on the Brazilian coast, local authorities prohibited the docking of the aircraft carrier in Suape, in Pernambuco. In this way, the tug Alp Center and the NAe were sailing aimlessly for months, until the Navy intervened in the situation.
When assessing the ship that was once the flagship of the Brazilian fleet, MB found “a severe degradation of buoyancy and stability conditions.” Before that, the Navy, through the Brazilian Maritime Authority (AMB), had already detected damage to the hull, whose repairs would be Sök's responsibility.
In this way, the Navy once again assumed istrative control of the hull, taking it to a “the furthest maritime area, within the Brazilian Jurisdictional Waters (AJB), 350 km from the Brazilian coast and with an approximate depth of 5 meters, where the Ocean Vessel “Purus” replaced the contracted tug, accompanied by the frigate “ União”, both from MB”, says the institution in a note.
“In view of the facts presented and the increasing risk involved in towing, due to the deterioration of the hull's buoyancy conditions and the inevitability of spontaneous/uncontrolled sinking, it is not possible to adopt any other course of action other than jettisoning the hull, for means of planned and controlled sinking.”
The sinking of the ex-NAe São Paulo (A12) should be carried out by Navy teams in the coming days, taking to the bottom of the sea a story that begins in the late 1950s.
The hull of the current São Paulo was launched in 1957 as the R99 Foch, the second aircraft carrier of the Clemenceau Class of the French Navy. The ship entered service in 1963 and remained in operation with that country until being retired in November 2000, being quickly acquired by the Brazilian Navy, as a replacement for the then Navio Aeródromo Ligeiro (NAeL) Minas Gerais, the first aircraft carrier Brazilian.
Photo: US Navy.
The ship went through upgrades and repairs before being operated by MB, being used in several operations in its first years of service. The ship received on board MB's own AF-1 Skyhawk (Douglas A-4) fighter and attack jets, as well as Argentine and Uruguayan naval aviation aircraft.
However, it didn't take long for São Paulo to present problems. In May 2005, the most serious accident on board the ship occurred: the fire and subsequent explosion in one of the boilers left three sailors dead and eight injured.
The A12 São Paulo spent most of its life at MB berthed at the Arsenal de Marinha do Rio de Janeiro (AMRJ), having operated at sea for only 206 days. The Navy even planned a major modernization of the ship, which would keep it operational until 2039, but the high costs prohibited such actions. In 2018, the Navy retired its largest aircraft carrier permanently, auctioning the hull in 2021.
