page_title: Ocean liner
section_title: Maritime disasters and incidents
hierarchical_section_title: Ocean liner / Other / Maritime disasters and incidents
context_page_description: An ocean liner is a passenger ship primarily used as a form of transportation across seas or oceans. Liners may also carry cargo or mail, and may sometimes be used for other purposes.
  Cargo vessels running to a schedule are sometimes called liners. The category does not include ferries or other vessels engaged in short-sea trading, nor dedicated cruise ships where the voyage itself, and not transportation, is the prime purpose of the trip. Nor does it include tramp steamers, even those equipped to handle limited numbers of passengers. Some shipping companies refer to themselves as "lines" and their container ships, which often operate over set routes according to established schedules, as "liners".
  Ocean liners are usually strongly built with a high freeboard to withstand rough seas and adverse conditions encountered in the open ocean. Additionally, they are often designed with thicker hull plating than is found on cruise ships, and have large capacities for fuel, food and other consumables on long voyages.
  The first ocean liners were built in the mid-19th century.
context_section_description: Some ocean liners are known today because of their sinking with great loss of lives. In 1873, RMS Atlantic struck an underwater rock and sank off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada, killing at least 535 people. In 1912, the sinking of the RMS Titanic, which took approximately 1,500 lives, highlighted the overconfidence of the shipping companies in their ships, such as the failure to put enough lifeboats on board. Safety measures at sea were reexamined following the incident. Two years later, in 1914, RMS Empress of Ireland sank in the Saint Lawrence River after colliding with another ship. 1,012 people died.
  Among the other sinkings are the torpedo sinking of the RMS Lusitania in 1915, which resulted in the loss of 1,198 lives and provoked an international outcry, the naval mine sinking of the HMHS Britannic in 1916, and that of MS Georges Philippar, which caught fire and sank in the Gulf of Aden in 1932, killing 54 people. In 1956, the sinking of SS Andrea Doria, with the loss of 46 lives, after a collision with MS Stockholm made the headline.
  In 1985, MS Achille Lauro was hijacked off the coast of Egypt by members of the Palestinian Liberation Front, resulting the death of one of the hostages being held by the hijackers. In 1994, she caught fire and sank off the coast of Somalia.
caption: The SS Andrea Doria sinking after colliding with MS Stockholm in 1956
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