Tampa Bay marks 42 years since deadly Blackthorn collision

Tampa Bay marks 42 years since deadly Blackthorn collision

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — It’s been 42 years since the USCGC Blackthorn collided with a tanker and sank near the Sunshine Skyway Bridge

The Blackthorn collision in the mouth of Tampa Bay was one of the deadliest events in the Coast Guard’s 231-year history.

According to reports, Blackthorn had just completed her overhaul at the Gulf Tampa Drydock Company when it was overtaken by the Russian passenger ship Kazakhstan. The ship navigated to almost mid-channel to resume course as the tanker, Capricorn was standing in the bay.

Capricorn started turning left, but the ships were unable to pass port-to-port or make radio contact. Capricorn’s pilot blew two short whistle blasts to signal that the ships pass starboard-to-starboard. The officer on deck of the Blackthorn issued orders for evasive action, but they were unable to avoid a collision. The Capricorn’s anchor became embedded in the tender’s hull and ripped open the port side of the Blackthorn, causing the ship to capsize.

Twenty-three crew members died, and 27 others survived the collision.

Seaman Apprentice William “Billy” Flores is credited with saving lives by using his belt to keep a locker full of life jackets open.

The USCGC William Flores cutter is named in his honor. Flores is forever immortalized in a statute at the Circle of Heroes, an underwater memorial located about 10 miles off the Pinellas County coastline.

The post Tampa Bay marks 42 years since deadly Blackthorn collision first appeared on Daily Florida Press.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Committee week in Florida’s Capitol: Welcome to the festival of ignorance

Image
Legislators came to town for the autumn ritual of political harlotry they call “committee week.” Tallahassee’s collective IQ dropped by a good 60 points. That’s bad, but what they propose doing to Florida is worse. Seems Sen. Joe Gruters, R-$ara$ota, who also is chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, was intimately involved with a plot to quash the Democratic vote. Remember that “ voting reform ” bill the governor signed on “Fox and Friends” last May? The one that restricts access to ballot drop-boxes, limits vote-by-mail applications, forbids giving people standing in long lines a bottle of water, and lets partisan poll watchers police canvassing boards? Even though Florida ran an immaculate election in 2020, Republicans goose-stepped in time with the Madman of Mar-a-Lago and claimed with straight faces they merely wanted to prevent election “fraud” — which is about as common as polar bears in Miami. (What fraud there was, was courtesy of the GOP .) Joe Gruters ...
Read more

U.S. House GOP would make it easier for feds to give public lands away to states

Image
U.S. House Republicans included in the new rules for the chamber they passed this month a provision meant to make it easier for Congress to give away public lands. The provision is a fairly technical piece of the 55-page  rules package . It affects internal House accounting and requires that anytime Congress were to give any federal lands to a state, municipality or tribe, it would not be counted as a loss to the federal budget. House Republicans had an identical rule when they controlled the chamber from 2017 to 2019. Advocates and critics agree the measure would be helpful to any effort by the House to transfer federal lands to states. But they disagree about the wisdom of such giveaways. Republicans and conservative groups see states as preferable stewards of most public lands. Those closest to the land are in a better position to make decisions on how to manage them than those in Washington bureaucracies, they say. Environmental groups and Democrats see federal divest...
Read more

Democratic governors press U.S. Senate to act on voting rights legislation

Image
WASHINGTON — Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and 16 other Democratic governors are urging the U.S. Senate to pass two bills that aim to protect voting rights. Both measures need 60 votes to advance under Senate rules but have been stalled by Republican opposition in the evenly divided Senate. “Without decisive action by the federal government this year to protect voters’ access to the ballot and ensure the integrity and transparency of our elections, the voices of Americans across the country, especially Americans of color, will be suppressed,” the governors wrote in a Monday  letter  to U.S. Senate leadership. Governors who signed the letter include Jared Polis of Colorado, Tim Walz of Minnesota, Steve Sisolak of Nevada, Phil Murphy of New Jersey, Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, Roy Cooper of North Carolina, Kate Brown of Oregon, Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania and Tony Evers of Wisconsin, among others. One bill, known as the  John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2...
Read more