Genoa court orders RINA to pay over €60 million over Al Salam Boccaccio 98 sinking

The civil court in Genoa has ordered Italian classification society RINA to pay more than €60 million in damages to around 700 relatives of the victims of the Al Salam Boccaccio 98, the ferry that sank in the Red Sea in February 2006 with the loss of 1,071 of the roughly 1,400 people on board.

The ship was one of five sisters built for Tirrenia in 1968. Four decks were added to the Boccaccio in 1990, and in 1999 the vessels were sold to Egyptian owner El Salam Shipping & Trading.

The court accepted a technical reconstruction in which a fire broke out in a baggage trailer on the vehicle deck. Water from firefighting could not drain from the main deck, the ship developed a growing list to starboard, and ballast taken on the port side to correct it overflowed into the garage itself rather than overboard. The judgment says RINA failed to flag this design feature, which led the master to believe the balancing manoeuvre would work, and that operating instructions, including a specific warning in Italian, were never translated for the Egyptian crew. It lists 22 further areas of negligence, including crew training and checks on safety drills.

Relatives who had received no compensation were awarded between €100,000 and €150,000 each. The families' lawyers had sought around €300 million in total. RINA must also pay €3.5 million in legal costs. In a statement, RINA said it deeply disagrees with the ruling, pointing out that two technical investigations, including the flag state's, and several criminal and administrative proceedings concluded more than ten years ago had blamed the shipowner and the master, without finding RINA responsible. The judgment can be appealed.