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Incident · 2024-12-25 → 2024-12-26

Eagle S — Estlink 2, Dec 2024

On 25 December 2024 at 10:26 UTC, the Estlink 2 submarine power cable between Estonia and Finland failed. The Cook Islands–flagged tanker Eagle S, part of Russia's 'shadow fleet' and outbound from Ust-Luga with a cargo of unleaded gasoline, crossed the cable at the same moment. OSINT analysts noted the vessel slowed by ~25% in the minutes before the crossing and made a U-turn shortly after. Finnish police boarded Eagle S at 00:28 UTC on 26 December near Porkkala. The vessel had also reportedly been carrying surveillance equipment.

Open the live interactive replay

Vessels of interest

  • Eagle SMMSI 518998739IMO 9329760flag CKtanker

Timeline

  1. 2024-12-25 07:00ZEagle S departs Ust-Luga
  2. 2024-12-25 10:10ZSpeed drops 25% as vessel approaches Estlink-2 corridor
  3. 2024-12-25 10:26ZEstlink 2 fails at the same moment Eagle S crosses
  4. 2024-12-25 13:00ZU-turn ~30 minutes after crossing
  5. 2024-12-26 00:28ZFinnish authorities board the vessel near Porkkala

Reported damage

  • 2024-12-25 10:26Z · Estlink 2 (damage)
    Estlink 2 unplanned failure — capacity drops 1016→358 MW

Detector backtest

Live-detector backtest: 1 alert fired against the replayed track (loitering). Earliest alert fired 0.6h after the first damage event (concurrent with the strike pattern).

  • 2024-12-25 11:00Z·loitering·low·Nord Stream 1
    Vessel 518998739 loitering near Nord Stream 1: 0 course reversals, avg SOG 5.4 kn over 120 min

The same anomaly detectors that run against live AIS were replayed over a curated reconstruction of this incident. The alerts above are what would have fired in real-time. See About for the methodology.

Sources

Data note: Hand-curated from Wikipedia, IStories, and submarinenetworks.com reporting. Eagle S MMSI/IMO from public registries; track is plausible interpolation, not raw AIS.

This page covers a publicly-reported maritime incident. Tidewatch does not accuse any currently-operating vessel; named vessels here are those publicly identified by news organisations, government investigations, and OSINT communities cited above.