Container spill - APL England

Background

Just after 6:10am AEST on Sunday 24 May the ship, APL England, experienced a temporary loss of propulsion during heavy seas approximately 73 kilometres south east of Sydney.

At the time, the ship was on a journey from Ningbo, China to Melbourne, Australia.

During the power outage the ship reported that it was rolling heavily causing container stacks to collapse and a reported 40 containers to fall overboard in waters approximately 2km deep.

This was later revised to 50 containers.

The Master of the APL England reported an additional 74 containers had been damaged and remained collapsed on the deck of the ship, while a further six containers were reported to be protruding from starboard side and three containers from the port side of the ship.

The ship entered the port of Brisbane, where an investigation was completed by the relevant authorities.