Intense fire aboard car carrier Morning Midas forces crew to seek safety in lifeboat

A pure car and truck carrier (PCTC) carrying more than 3,000 vehicles, including nearly 800 battery electric and hybrid units, has been abandoned in the mid-Pacific following a fire that its crew was unable to control.

The Morning Midas, managed by Zodiac Maritime, was under charter by SAIC Anji Logistics and en route from Yantai port in China to the Mexican port of Lázaro Cárdenas when smoke was seen emanating from a deck carrying electric vehicles at 00:00 UTC on June 3. At that point the vessel was 480km south of Adak Island, part of Alaska.

“The crew immediately initiated emergency firefighting procedures using the vessel’s onboard fire suppression systems. However, despite their efforts, the situation could not be brought under control,” said Zodiac Maritime.

The 22 crew was then forced to abandoned the vessel using a lifeboat and all were safely picked up by the containership Cosco Hellas.

Zodiac Maritime said the vessel was still on fire on June 9. Relevant authorities were notified when the fire was reported and Zodiac Maritime is working closely with emergency responders. A tug has been deployed to support salvage and firefighting operations, carrying a team of salvage specialists and specialised equipment to assess the vessel. That tug, the first of three vessels dispatched by the salvors Resolve Marine to the location, reached the Morning Midas on Monday afternoon (June 9) local time zone (UTC-9). The specialists are assessing the vessel’s condition and providing necessary support. Two additional tugs with firefighting and long-distance towing capabilities are also underway, with the first planned to arrive in approximately six days and the second in around 12 days.

“As the search and rescue portion of our response concludes, our crews are working closely with the vessel’s manager, Zodiac Maritime, to determine the disposition of the vessel,” said rear admiral Megan Dean, commander of the Coast Guard’s Seventeenth District. “We are grateful for the selfless actions of the three nearby vessels who assisted in the response and the crew of motor vessel Cosco Hellas, who helped save 22 lives.”

Zodiac Maritime said that while there are so far no signs of pollution and the vessel’s watertight integrity remains intact, an environmental pollution control plan has also been developed by Resolve Marine in consultation with the US Coast Guard and ’spill response assets’ are on standby.

There have been a number of PCTC fires in recent years involving the transport of battery EVs and hybrids. In February 2022 the MOL vessel Felicity Ace carrying 4,000 VW Group vehicles burned out of control and eventually sank in the Atlantic. MOL later filed a lawsuit against Porsche (part of the VW Group) blaming the fire on an EV battery in the car, according to a report in the Nikkei Asia. Another MOL vessel, Sincerity Ace, caught fire on December 2018 in the Pacific with 3,800 vehicles on board and continued to burn for several days. Five crew members were lost in the tragedy but the cause of the fire remains unknown.

While not exclusively the cause of finished vehicle fires at sea, the lithium-ion batteries used to power EVs can burn with high intensity if they are damaged because of thermal runaway.

In August 2023 a fire aboard the K Line vessel Freemantle Highway, which was carrying EVs, destroyed its upper deck, though initial reports that those EVs were the cause of the fire was later ruled out.

Vessel operators and fire abatement system companies have been working on measures to prevent and control vessel fires. That includes Hyundai Glovis, which uses a combination of periodic temperature monitoring, heat/smoke detectors, CCTV, and onboard fire cover and water mist lance technology to quickly contain any fire that is detected.