On 6 December 2006, Mighty Servant 3 sank in 62 m of water near the port of Luanda, Angola, while offloading the drilling platform Aleutian Key. During submerging to unload cargo, the ship developed a list and continued to submerge beyond design limits. There were no casualties, nor damage to the transported platform.
After 5 months of resting on the seabed, it was salvaged by Dutch salvage-company Smit International and handed back to its owners on 26 May 2007. To pull the vessel from the seabed, the 1,200 tonne sheerleg Taklift 7 was used in combination with pumping pressurized air into the closed compartments of Mighty Servant 3. It was transported to Cape Town for repairs, arriving on Sunday 17 June 2007. In August 2009, after an extensive rebuild, in Zwolle by Wärtsilä, she was returned to service. |
