The Brazilian Navy officially announced that on the evening of February 3, 2023, the aircraft carrier A 12 São Paulo (formerly French Foch), decommissioned from the Brazilian fleet, was routinely flooded in a given area of the Atlantic Ocean 350 km off the coast of Brazil at a depth of about 5,000 meters. The aircraft carrier was excluded from the Brazilian Navy in 2020.
Decommissioned from the Brazilian navy aircraft carrier A 12 São Paulo (formerly French Foch) before sinking in the Atlantic Ocean, December 2022 (c) MSK Maritime Services & TradingOn March 12, 2021, the Brazilian Ministry of Defense sold the decommissioned São Paulo at auction in Rio de Janeiro for 10.55 million reais (586 thousand dollars) to the Turkish firm Sok Denizcilikve Tic.
for scrapping. In August 2022, the Turkish company began towing the ship from Rio de Janeiro to Turkey (to Aliaga in Izmir) for disassembly, but soon, due to the discovery of a significant amount of asbestos in the hull structures (9.6 tons, while 55 tons were removed during repairs in the early 1990s), the Turkish authorities they banned its disassembly on Turkish territory. After that, the ship was returned to the coast of Brazil in October and drifted in tow for more than three months outside Brazilian territorial waters in the area of Pernambuco. In December 2022, ownership of the former ship passed to the Turkish shipping company MSK Maritime Services & Trading, which carried out the actual towing of São Paulo from Brazil to Europe and back to Brazil.
After a series of lawsuits, the ship was eventually recognized as the property of the Brazilian Navy on January 20, 2023, which decided to sink it. It is reported that the survey conducted on January 13 showed the flow of water into the building, and within a month the volume of flooding could reach "unsafe" sizes. On January 20, the Brazilian Navy towed the former aircraft carrier to the area of flooding with the help of its own sea tug Purus and on February 1 finally announced the decision to sink the ship.
Recall that the aircraft carrier R 99 Foch was commissioned into the French Navy in 1963, and after being decommissioned from the French Fleet, it was acquired by Brazil in September 2000 for $ 12.5 million with renaming to A 12 São Paulo. Due to poor technical condition, the old ship was little used as part of the Brazilian fleet, and last went to sea in 2012, having spent a total of 206 days at sea for 12 years. The aircraft carrier flew 5,4024.6 miles under the Brazilian flag and made 566 ejection launches of aircraft.
The ship in the Brazilian Navy, in fact, never became fully operational, was in permanent minor repairs and as a result, in 2014 it was put on medium repair and modernization in Rio de Janeiro with the intention of completing the work in 2019 and with optimistic terms of extending its service until 2039. In fact, work on the ship did not begin, remaining at the design and study stage, which eventually showed that the costs of repairing the old ship were unjustified, especially in the conditions of the financial crisis. In February 2017, the Brazilian Navy Command officially announced its decision to exclude São Paulo from the Brazilian fleet, refusing to repair and modernize it, and deactivating the ship for three years.
Decommissioned from the Brazilian navy aircraft carrier A 12 São Paulo (formerly French Foch) before sinking in the Atlantic Ocean, December 2022 (c) MSK Maritime Services & TradingArtistic image of the sinking of the aircraft carrier A 12 São Paulo (former French Foch) decommissioned from the Brazilian fleet 03.02.2023 (c) David Morel / @800Tonnes (via www.navalnews.com )
