“Royston Grange”

[Administrator]

Fifty years ago on 11th MAY 1972 the cargo passenger ship “Royston Grange” was heading from Buenos Aires back to London, on board were 61 crew, 12 passengers (including six women and a 5-year old child) and the Argentinian pilot. In dense fog as she crossed the Pyunta Indio Channel, just before six in the morning she collided with the Liberian-registered tanker Tien Chee, carrying 20,000 tons of crude oil.

The Tien Chee immediately burst into flames and a series of explosions rapidly carried the flames to the Royston Grange where most of the crew and passengers were asleep. Sadly all 74 people on the Royson Grange lost their lives. What was surprising was the fact that the Deck officers and passengers were separated from the engineers and the crew by a cargo hatch. The hold was holding a cargo of butter and the insulation ignited from the initial fireball of vapor from the oil tanker.

The Tien Chee also caught fire and eight of her forty Chinese crew died but the remainder, along with her Argentinian pilot, managed to abandon ship and were picked up by cutters of the Argentine Naval Prefecture.

LINK

[Administrator]

Royston Grange tragedy - 50th anniversary.

All 74 souls on board lost.



Tomorrow, 11 May marks the 50th anniversary of the tragedy that saw the collision of the British-flagged cargo liner Royston Grange and the tanker Tien Chee, with the ensuing fire that killed all 74 people aboard Royston Grange, and eight crew of the tanker.

Early on that morning, Royston Grange was in the River Plate bound for Montevideo, Uruguay and then London, having departed Buenos Aires, Argentina with a cargo of beef, butter and grain. At around 0540hrs, in dense fog, she collided with the Liberian-flagged tanker Tien Chee, also inbound with a cargo of crude oil.

The ships were passing port-to-port when Royston Grange veered to port and its bow struck the tanker amidships, holing several wing tanks. The tanker burst into flames, and a series of explosions resulted in a fireball which engulfed both ships. A devastating inferno saw all onboard Royston Grange killed (61 crew, 12 passengers including 6 women and a 5 year old child, and the pilot) – the first time since the Second World War that all hands on a British ship had been lost.

The surviving tanker crew took to lifeboats and were subsequently rescued. Fire fighting efforts were severely hindered by the intense heat and dense smoke; it took almost four days for the Royston Grange fires to be fully extinguished. Subsequent enquiries found that the butter cargo had caught fire causing the inferno, and criticised the navigation of the tanker and a poorly maintained deep channel for the collision.

The UK-flagged Houlder Line refrigerated liner was built at the Hawthorn, Leslie shipyard in Hebburn on Tyne, and launched in 1959.

On the 50th anniversary of the tragedy there will be a service of commemoration at All Hallows by the Tower in London tomorrow 11 May 2022, at 2pm (A window in this church is dedicated to those lost in this tragedy)

(Sources - Tyne Built Ships, The Pilot - online edition, Nautilus International - online edition, Images - Bob Scott and Photoship)