Why Brazil Sank Its Own Aircraft Carrier At Sea  

Some info, because this is not so simple. This old ship was sold to a company that took it to Turkey. Turkey forbid is entrance. Brazil also forbid its return. The company that was responsible threatened to abandon the ship in the middle of the ocean. The Brazilian navy decided to assume reasonably over it again. But it identified three huge holes caused by oxidation at the hull. 3000 cubic meters of water had ALREADY entered the ship. The report said the ship would sink naturally before the end of February. The asbestos is impossible to remove. It's an integral part of the ship. The Brazilian navy decided to sink it because it would sink anyway. And if it sink uncontrolled, it might threaten the crew of the tugboat. Furthermore, it might sink near the port, creating a logistical nightmare. Or in an environmental protected area. There wasn't much that could be done except this. BTW, notice that asbestos was used extensively in ships at WW2 time. As so many ships were sunk at the time, the asbestos in this aircraft carrier is a drop in the ocean, in comparison

The sinking footage was not of the Sao Palo, it was of the USS Oriskany - the carrier that the US properly decontaminated and sank to provide an artificial reef and a recreational diving spot.

I'm surprised that Brazil didn't try to sell it to China.

Sea animals: "Oh, a new apartment"

Having served on a US helicopter carrier, built in mid '45, loaded with asbestos, our ship did well for decades. Asbestos was never a problem unless disturbed. After severely damaged in a gale off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, in the winter of 1967, the Navy sent us to repairs and refit at the yards in Boston. Took lots of work and time. Instead of moving its crew off ship, we became exposed to many types airborne hazards like asbestos during the work. I now have asbestosis...

The absolute best way to mitigate the danger of asbestos is to get it wet. Problem solved, I'd say.

As long as you aren't breathing in the asbestos it isn't a threat. And if you're 350km off the cost of Brazil and 5km under the ocean and trying to breathe, then you have bigger problems than asbestos.

fun fact: before sinking it, Brazil actually sold the carrier as scrap for a Turkish company, but they didn't let it in because of the asbestos and stuff, so they sunk it

As long as there weren't any chemicals, it would be fine. Asbestos is harmless if it's wet and undisturbed

Once I was playing HOI4 as Brazil and I experienced a bug where my entire navy was sunk, save for one battleship that I couldn't control in the Caribiean. This Ghost Ship just sailed around engaging American ships and Aircraft and winning against entire fleets because it couldn't die.

man the titanic was a environmental crime and the captain, the people on board, and the iceberg should pay dearly -environmentalist

“To the horror of environmentalists” they should watch the ship breaking yards of Bangladesh that’s horror !!!

You know what I think? I think you left the cameraman on that ship.😮

Environmental crime? That's just an artificial coral reef.

I think no matter what you do someone will always hate you.

sunken ships are actually pretty good for deep sea creatures, thats a lot of hiding spaces and plenty of room for coral to grow

I'd have bought it for less than what they paid to sink it. I've always wanted an aircraft carrier.

Now Lawyers are sending fish notices about mesothelioma lawsuits

Ships are sunken by many nations all around the world all the time. This because they help create barrier reefs. Seems “political” that its being made an issue. Also IMO, seems like Brazil doesn’t need a carrier. These are costly and mostly useful to attack/invade lands beyond your own 🤔

France pulled a fast one on Brazil, by the sound of it.

15000 feet down, no big deal-- think about all the ships that went down in WW1 & 2

Asbestos occurs naturally in aggregate form. Having wet on the sea bed does absolutely no harm in any way. Every feature on the seabed promotes sea life. There could not have been a better use for it.

They could have just declared war on some other country and let it be sunk in their waters and then say, “ we surrender “.

1) they actually removed an cleaned the ship of a lot of the asbestos. In the end, the hardest parts to clean would probably end up polluting more. So actually sinking it away from everything was kinda the least worse they could do. 2) to me, an aircraft carrier never made much sense to Brazilian doctrine. Thank God it sank. Too bad it took so long.

It is now a great home for Marine life. Great idea.

This is fine, US Navy did this back in the day with the Oriskany and now it's a diving spot, plus it's underwater, it's no longer floating in the air and it's not gonna kill anyone.

It's the pcb's, lead paint, oil and fuels in the tanks that are the issue...

Environmentalists are horrified by the controlled sinking meanwhile, environmentalists agitated to stop the ship from being sold for scrap or brought into harbor for remediation.

Some of the video clips used in this video were of the sinking of the former USS Oriskany to make an artificial reef off the US east coast. This was done after months of mitigation efforts to remove asbestos and other hazardous material.

It was starting to act like the Admiral Kuznetsov. The Brazilians are kind enough to put the poor thing down.

I’m not an environmentalist but that was not right! Any country that takes on the major responsibility of owning a ship of war should also take on the responsibility of the peace and everything that goes with it including the environment!!! Shame on you Brazil!

It will become an artificial reef, a hotspot of biodiversity

All of a sudden everyone became an asbestos scientist

Where do people think most ships end up? In America we use old ships as target practice and send them to the deep. I’m sure more than a few had asbestos lol.

I don't know anything about asbestos but I do watch a lot of movies, so I'm pretty sure Brazil is going to be attacked by a gigantic radioactive squid as a result of this.

As long as it has the major toxic materials removed it could end up being good acting as an artificial reef

Asbestos is not dangerous underwater

Reading further context and facts, the decision to scuttle it in a safe manner rather than becoming a navigational hazard is a good call from the Brazillian Navy.

Asbestos that's wet is not hazardous cuz it's not loose. Coral will grow, overgrow it encapsulating it.

When you have an aircraft carrier you don't ask for permission to dock in the port

Repose in peace Carrier Foch

Future archaeologists are gonna find the ship and be like “wow this ship must have been sunken in a great battle thousands of years ago” Nah mate, absestos.

Sunken ships make it really easy to get a Coral reef going

Crazy to see something so large go down

People won't let it dock so they can remove the toxic materials. People get upset when they sink it since they can no longer afford it

You know, sunken ships create homes for marine life.

That's not really an environmental issue and shipwrecks can work as an artificial reef for fishes.

Oh that's great. Not like we haven't put enough junk in the ocean.

Brazil should never have bought the pile of junk in the first place.

J'ai navigué sur ce Navire en 1996 , il vivait alors ces dernière années de service sous pavillon Français. Je suis triste qu'il ai fini de cette manière.

Have these people HEARD of asbestosis? I’d have sunk it myself

Five miles under the middle of the Atlantic is probably the most environnentally safe place for it to be.

The main problem is not the Asbestos (which is only a problem if you breath it in), the ship also contained long term poisonous stuff like PCB, a chemical nobody wants in the food chain. It was used in oils, for example transformer oil or special low flammable hydraulic oil. PCB belongs to the worst chemicals if they find their way into the environment. Ships sunk by the US as practise targets are stripped of such chemicals before they are used for targets

What else were they gonna do with it? Give it to the environmentalists so they can snort it like c'cain? I'd actually like to see that.

every single person who complained should be rounded up and forced to participate in the retrieval and actual disposal, since they claim to care so much

If we had a cost effective way to send materials into the sun, asbestos would be one of the first things I would send... maybe radioactive waste as well.

So... environmentalists don't want a new Coral Reef off the coast then? Because I'd say that's a boon to the environment, not harm... As long as the fuels and oils were removed, there's nothing wrong with this. It's great for sea life!

I wouldn't expect many people or animals would be breathing in asbestos dust when it's underwater.

Not half as bad as discharging radio active water into the pacific at Fukushima

After what the Brazilian government has allowed to happen in the Amazon this ship sinking would have to be awfully bad for the environment to be worse than it.

"State sponsored environmental crime" by the same people who blew up Nordstream in an industrial terrorist attack.

Asbestos is a mineral. It's only a hazard if frayed or disturbed. Putting back into the ground works for disposal, but sinking is a good secondary option.

if the environmentalist want it so bad let them go down there and get or they can shut because they didn't do anything for it when it was up besides complain.....

Brazil : sails the ship to Turkey which accepted to decontaminate and dismantle the ship Environnementalists : organizing strikes in Turkey to prevent the decontamination in Turkey from happening WHILE the ship was on its way for Turkey Brazil : sunks the decaying ship in a safe way to prevent a deadly incident because no other harbors in the world want problems with environementalists Environementalists : " wait thats illegal ! "

What I think is that this has been done many times by many countries. With varying degrees of abatement and a variety of narratives such as "artificial reef for the fishies".

"environmentalists": they could be completely stupid and have no idea what theyre talking about except regurgitating what someone on TV told them yet they all get classed together under this word as if they know what they are talking about.

O casco afundado não pertencia ao Brasil porque foi adquirido por uma empresa turca que o rebocou até a entrada do Mar Mediterrâneo. Tudo estava dentro da lei, mas as autoridades da Turquia mudaram de ideia por causa de protestos ecológicos da turma da Greta Thunberg e a empresa teve que rebocar o casco de volta ao Atlântico Sul. A empresa abandonou o casco à deriva em águas da zona econômica exclusiva do litoral do Brasil. O casco estava fraturado, a água invadia as galerias internas sem controle e a embarcação afundaria em menos de duas ou três semanas. A Marinha do Brasil fez o afundamento controlado do casco para não piorar a situação com outro desastre. O Brasil não era o proprietário do casco da embarcação que sua Marinha afundou.

I'd say they wasted a perfectly good aircraft carrier 🤷 .......

Well we sank the Oriskany, however, we spent years pulling all the toxic material out of it. Even to the point of stripping some sections of paint. All I can say is there is people around the world who don't even try to do the right thing. I think Brazil was at least trying.

The ship is not full of toxic materials. I sure they cleaned the ship of fuel and oils. They could've sent crews in in hazmat suits and stripped the asbestos off it. They probably even stripped it of its outer paint job. But at 5000m, that's so deep it'll just rust and degrade.

Ah yes the carrier that was filled with asbestos

Yeah The Foch, that was its name. It was sold to Brazil after being used for 40 years by the French navy

The bottom of the Ocean at that depth will work wonders on all that stuff. Especially the asbestos.

"Hey we need to safely decomish this ship" "No! Don't park it here!" "OK I guess we'll sink it then." -Visible shock- Well they did try to do it safely

Turning it into a reef is probably doing the environment a favor. The environmentalists going nuts over it is just more evidence of how the environmentalist movement operates on emotion rather than logic.

Asbestos is also based unto a material that's found in nature, i'd rather more worried about toxic metal alloys rather than asbestos

Well let's just give the ocean all of our problems and assume the water cycle will make them disappear.

Wait until the asbestos washes onto the beach as the ship rusts away.

Idk why but this kinda reminded me of a sad anime moment where the ship named "going merry" had to be put down because she could no longer sail the seas. The spirit of the ship apologised to the the crewmembers for not being capable of travelling with them anymore and said goodbye as it got burned down. 😢😢😢

It's hard to say. The video implied there was other hazardous materials, so what exactly was on it when it sank? I don't think the asbestos will venture far from the ship, as it will usually be in panels and such, which ocean live will coat and seal in not long. I mean, the common alternative would have been to ground the ship in India, which is what a lot of other countries did for quite a while. Hopefully the fact that the video implied it could means India has gotten a lot better about asbestos safety. Lots of people over there worked with asbestos with zero safety equipment for a long time. I remember videos of guys in nothing more than underwear fluffing asbestos and tossing it up in the air. They likely have all died horrific deaths. If the only choices were to sink it and send it to some country that doesn't protect its workers, I would go with sinking. On the other hand, likely the ship could have been dismantled safely, but at great cost, which means they probably just didn't want to spend anything on it. That's different. These countries should be obl8flgated to clean up the messes they make. The cost is a lesson to not repeat such choices in the future. They bought the ship at a time when they should have known the repercussions. Asbestos issues were well known back then.

Its a shame they didnt sink it closer to shore. Would make a pretty good dive location/artificial reef

Drop in the bucket against what sank during WWII, and I’m sure the millions for a proper dismantling could go towards a rainforest or something. 🙄

Curiosity: this aircraft carrier was bought from France, And the incredible number of 206 days in operation remained. He was bought in 2000 and stayed in the Navy until 2014, he spent most of his life in the Brazilian Navy in the shipyard being repaired than in the sea

seeing the whereabouts of this ship in national news was really confusing. There was some navy enthusiast that suggested turning the ship into a museum(the ship was already sold and departed to be dismounted). The enthusiast and scientists warned about those toxic materials(again, the ship already sold, departed to be dismounted). The turks didn't want the ship anymore because of those toxic materials(it's a natural occurring material and it's pretty common to have those in aircraft carrier, I thought they knew about those materials). Neither Brazil wanted the ship docked in brazilian ports(as if it never touched Brazil before). The ship was left adrift for a while and then we decided to sink the ship to the bottom of the ocean

The road of life is littered with flat squirrels that couldn't make a decision. Due to flat squirrels in Brazil's government and military, dithering, the hazardous carrier Sao Paulo floated on the water for years, derelict. Someone showed leadership and made a decision. SALUTE! 👌

I worked in Brasil for ten years and the ship never moved from the dock even once. There were fires and other issues that just kept wasting money.

At that depth, it probably won’t hurt anything and the corrosive sea water will dissolve and destroy the contaminants in due time. Although it makes you wonder why it was constructed to be so hazardous in the first place.

the Brazilian aircraft carrier Atlântico can carry up to 18 helicopters, or 40 aircraft like Harrier or F35 can have 432 crew and up to 1,400 marines. It has the capacity to accommodate more people than some Brazilian municipalities, such as Serra da Saudade (MG), with only 771 inhabitants; Borá (SP), with 839; Araguainha (MT), with 909; and Engenho Velho (RS), with 932 residents. 23 Feb 2023The future aircraft carrier, possibly called Rio de Janeiro, is foreseen in the PAEMB program (acronym for Articulation and Equipment Plan of the Brazilian Navy), with the objective of being a fully operational aircraft carrier in 2040.

That carrier is going to eventually become a new coral reef one day and home to many oceanic wildlife

hmm yes lets let the inaccessible toxic ship wander around aimlessly instead of confining it into one spot underwater

Well what the Brazilian government shouldn’t done was collect increased taxes from the environmentalists and build a space ship and send the ship to the sun where he could melt safely.

People don’t get it if you skink something huge you are helping the environment to create reefs for sealife

Gringo trying to say São Paulo correctly (mission impossible). It's always fun when someone says "Saw Pawlow". Gotta love it.

Apparently, environmentalists did not want the ship to be taken by a country and also get mad when it sinks on purpose.

I swear to god if they put the subtitles under the subscribe button one more time

My dad is asbestos’ for a living and can confirm there are no problems with him/asbestos as long as it’s not disturbed…but one you get it angry…RUN

I think people will complain about anything, and you should pay them no mind

Asbestos only becomes a problem when disturbed

The environmentals would not go up in arms if they had to do the dirty work of removing those materials

Seems like they did the best thing possible. Asbestos isn’t going to anything in the water so I think 5k meters down and 350 miles from shore should do it