Boat Injury Lawyers

Shipping Disasters: Sultana Explosion and Sinking

Whenever people think of a disaster involving a passenger ship, such disasters as the sinking of the Titanic or the Lusitania come to mind. What people don’t realize is how long disasters have been occurring involving ships. Many people do not know of the Sultana disaster of April 1865.

The Sultana disaster occurred along the Mississippi River, just north of Memphis. The Sultana was a steam-powered paddlewheel boat which was built in 1863 primarily to transport cotton on the lower Mississippi River.

In April of 1865, the ship was taking numerous people north from New Orleans ultimately to St. Louis. The vessel stopped in Vicksburg, Mississippi to take on more passengers and to repair one of the ship’s boilers. The boiler that needed repairs had been leaking water. When they reached Vicksburg, the captain ordered a patch for the leaky boiler. The patch was ordered instead of a completely new boiler in an effort to save time. Replacing the boiler would have taken 3 days whereas patching the leaky one took only one day.

By the time the boat departed Vicksburg with its newly repaired boiler, there were more than 2,000 people on board. The boat had a legal capacity of 376 people. The vast majority of people on board were former Union prisoners of war returning home to, mainly, Ohio. The excessive amount of weight caused the boat to be top heavy which caused it to list from side to side as it went around the curves of the Mississippi.

Just miles past Memphis, one of the boat’s boilers exploded. This destroyed a large portion of the boat to start. What was left was turned into a fiery blaze due to the hot coals which were scattered across the largely wooden boat in the explosion.

The cause of the explosion was the leaky and poorly repaired boiler. The official cause of the explosion was more a mismanagement of water levels in the boilers. As the boat careened around the twists of the Mississippi, the water level in the highest boiler dropped. This caused hot spots to form which turned the water to steam instantly when it rushed back in when the boat leveled out. The formation of steam caused an increase in the pressure of the boiler. This, when combined with the patch on the boiler, caused the boiler to explode.

The people that managed to survive the explosion, were then trapped inside a fiery boat. If they managed to jump overboard or were tossed into the water, the survivors then had to survive cold water and a Mississippi River that was at flood level. All in all, the best estimate is that between 700 and 800 people ended up surviving the accident.

If you have been injured in an accident while at sea, please contact the boat injury lawyers of Williams Kherkher at 1-800-220-9341 to discuss your case and to determine your legal options.