Survey Ship HMS Echo Finds 18 Wrecks in Remarkable Mission

The waters off Libya have provided rich pickings in one of the most fruitful periods of survey work ever carried out by the Royal Navy in recent years. In ten days’ work the Devonport-based survey ship found a string of sunken obstacles and wrecks – including what is believed to be a sunken amphibious ship from the Gaddafi era – in the waters of the capital Tripoli and the port of Al Khums. (Image Credit: Royal Navy UK)

Lying some 160ft beneath the surface of the Mediterranean, this was one of nearly 20 wrecks and objects peppering the seabed off Libya, found by Royal Navy survey ship HMS Echo in a remarkable ten-day search for hidden dangers to mariners.

The Devonport-based ship was the first Royal Navy vessel into Libya after the 2011 civil war and downfall of Col Gaddafi.

She returned this year for a concerted period of survey work – work which reaped rewards in and around the capital Tripoli earlier this month with various obstacles found in and just outside the harbour.

Further sweeps using the state-of-the-art sonar suites both of mother ship Echo and her hi-tech survey boat Sapphire over a ten-day period located one liner, two merchantmen, one warship, two fishing vessels, at least half a dozen shipping containers, two barges (one of them wooden) and four very large sunken pontoons.

Half a dozen miles off the coast of the port of Al Khums (also known as Khoms), Echo’s scanners picked up the distinctive shape of a warship.

Echo is in the early stages of an 18-month mission to improve seafarers’ charts on behalf of the UK Hydrographic Office in Taunton, who produce the world-famous – and heavily used – Admiralty Charts.

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