Location: Off the coast of Larnaca, Cyprus 🇨🇾 (1980) [Involved French crew and mystery]🇫🇷
The Story: While not occurring in mainland France, this maritime disaster involves a French crew and a deeply unsettling mystery. In 1980, the Swedish-built, French-crewed roll-on/roll-off ferry MS Zenobia, on her maiden voyage from France to Syria, began developing a critical list due to a malfunctioning computer system pumping water incorrectly into her ballast tanks. After days of struggle off the coast of Cyprus, the crew was forced to abandon ship. The massive vessel, along with her full cargo of over 100 trucks, capsized and sank in shallow water, where she remains as a famous dive wreck. 🚢
The Twist: The true eerie element is in the cause and the aftermath. The "ghost ship" moniker comes from the persistent legend that the sinking was not purely accidental. Theories suggest possible insurance fraud, a computer virus (an idea decades ahead of its time), or even sabotage. The wreck itself is a time capsule of 1980s cargo, with trucks still chained in the hold, creating an underwater ghost town. For the French maritime community, it remains a technologically mysterious tragedy;a state-of-the-art vessel betrayed by its own electronic brain, sinking for reasons that have never been fully and satisfactorily explained, leaving a labyrinth of metal and speculation on the seabed. đź‘»