Then they move a little bit quicker, especially East, towards in the direction of Africa.” Abouchar, who uses Spire Maritime's data gathered by satellites to monitor currents, says these looped movements are unlikely to just be the sea moving the ship around.
“They drifted around a bit, probably just by the currents. Put bluntly: it was barely moving at all. When the ship slowed down it is predicted to have been travelling at speeds of around 0.1 or 0.2 knots, which equates to around 0.2 to 0.3 kilometres per hour. The period shown in the animation covers September to October 2018. “Somewhere, almost mid-Atlantic they suddenly just stop,” Abouchar says. When the red line of travel turns white, this is the moment the ship slowed down. “They have the speed going through the Atlantic,” says Max Abouchar, an engineer at Spire Maritime. It left the Strait of Gibraltar in September 2018, before moving into the Atlantic. The animation above, produced by analysts at Spire Maritime, shows what happened to the Alta. It was at this point that the ship headed for open waters on its fateful final, manned, journey. These strange patterns repeated until the Alta reached Ceuta. “One from Genoa to Athens and then it switched it off again for a year and a half, then switched it back.” Hatzimanolis says this is “not normal behaviour” – nor is it normal for a ship to change its name and flag so regularly, he adds. “Since August 2015 it has been switching on and off sporadically while making some really strange trips,” Hatzimanolis says.
0 kommentar(er)
