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Incident · 2024-11-17 → 2024-11-21

Yi Peng 3 — C-Lion1 + BCS East-West, Nov 2024

On 17–18 November 2024, the C-Lion1 (Helsinki–Rostock) and BCS East-West (Lithuania–Sweden) submarine telecom cables were damaged within 18 hours. The Chinese-flagged bulk carrier Yi Peng 3, outbound from Vistino (RU), crossed both cables around the time of damage. The vessel turned its AIS off for ~7.5 hours after passing Gotland — the gap covers the C-Lion1 crossing. Sweden later requested the vessel return for inspection; it ultimately weighed anchor and continued to Port Said.

Open the live interactive replay

Vessels of interest

  • Yi Peng 3MMSI 412466000IMO 9224984flag CNbulk_carrier

Timeline

  1. 2024-11-17 00:00ZYi Peng 3 transits west across the central Baltic
  2. 2024-11-17 03:00ZVessel approaches BCS East-West cable corridor; speed drops
  3. 2024-11-17 08:00ZAIS goes dark just past Gotland
  4. 2024-11-17 15:30ZC-Lion1 crossing falls inside the AIS-off window
  5. 2024-11-17 22:41ZAIS reappears south of Öland
  6. 2024-11-19 00:00ZVessel anchored in Kattegat; Danish navy shadowing

Reported damage

  • 2024-11-17 10:30Z · BCS East-West Interlink (damage)
    BCS East-West cable cut detected — Arelion confirms outage
  • 2024-11-17 07:30Z · C-Lion1 (damage)
    C-Lion1 fibre disrupted — Cinia confirms break

Detector backtest

Live-detector backtest: 2 alerts fired against the replayed track (ais_off_zone, loitering). Earliest alert fired 6.6h after the first damage event (concurrent with the strike pattern).

  • 2024-11-17 09:06Z·ais_off_zone·medium·NordBalt
    Vessel 412466000 stopped broadcasting near NordBalt 67 min ago
  • 2024-11-17 10:15Z·loitering·low·Nord Stream 2
    Vessel 412466000 loitering near Nord Stream 2: 0 course reversals, avg SOG 2.3 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 publicly reported AIS observations (Kpler, MarineTraffic, Bellingcat) and Wikipedia. Track vertices are plausible interpolations between published waypoints — NOT raw AIS, do not use for forensic claims.

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.