The Ministry of Defense decided to sink the hull of the aircraft carrier São Paulo. A Saudi group had offered BRL 30 million for the equipment, but the government issued a note to inform that it will dump the vessel on the Brazilian coast.
The text states that, given the “deterioration of buoyancy conditions” and the “inevitability of spontaneous sinking”, it would not be possible to adopt any other course of action “other than jettisoning the hull”.
The proposal was made last Monday (30), after the Sheet reveal that the Navy planned to sink the vessel in view of the advanced degree of degradation of the old airfield.
The Saudis had offered a value three times higher than that made by the Turkish shipyard Sök Denizcilik and Ticaret Limited. The company even signed the acquisition contract with the Navy, but decided to return the aircraft carrier after Turkey vetoed the vessel’s entry into its territory.
This Wednesday (1st), the Ministry of Defense, the Navy and the AGU (Advocacy General of the Union) issued a joint note to inform that the hull tow train “was directed to the most distant maritime area, within the Jurisdicionais Brasileiras (AJB), 350 km from the Brazilian coast and with a depth of approximately 5,000 meters”.
“The referred area, selected based on a study carried out by the Navy’s Hydrography Center, was considered the safest for the conditions of severe degradation of the hull”, says the text.
And he continued with the explanation: “In view of the above, there was no alternative left to the Brazilian State but to consider the property as lost, under the terms of Law No. environment and preserve navigation safety.
The aircraft carrier São Paulo is 266 meters long. Its armament consisted of three twin missile launchers and heavy-caliber machine guns.
Unused for decades, the ship was dismantled in France. In the 1990s, it went through a demining process, which removed 55 tons of toxic product.
Even so, asbestos is still present in the walls of the aircraft carrier – the substance was used as a thermal and acoustic insulator, to reduce the noise of the aircraft taking off for the crew.
The aircraft carrier was sold by the Navy to a Turkish shipyard specializing in ship dismantling. The vehicle left Brazil on August 4, on a trip that generated protests around the world and was monitored in real time by Greenpeace.
The Navy says that, after the decision to demobilize the aircraft carrier, it opted to sell the hull for “green dismantling”, a safe recycling process for which the Turkish shipyard Sök is accredited and certified.
But, in the face of complaints about the illegal export of asbestos, the Turkish government revoked authorization for the vessel to enter on August 26, when the ship was approaching the Strait of Gilbraltar, on a trip made with the help of a tugboat.
Analyzes carried out by the NGO Shipbreaking on a twin aircraft carrier to the São Paulo identified 760 tons of asbestos on the vessel. In view of this, the organization began to question whether, in fact, the hull sent by Brazil would have the 10 tons of toxic substance as foreseen in the inventory.
Ibama (Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources) suspended the export license and determined the ship’s return to Brazil.
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