A Tally: The Sun Vista Disaster Analysis On Thursday May 20, the Sun Vista, a pleasure liner, caught fire and sank in the middle of the night off the coast of Penang, Malaysia. All aboard the luxury vessel were saved, but the disaster replays in some respects the sinking of the Titanic on April 15, 1912. ABC news, the Associated Press, and the BBC say passengers sang the theme song from the movie "Titanic" to bolster their morale. Like the Titanic, which held 2,200 people, the Sun Vista carried over a thousand. Also like the Titanic, the ship had a large crew in relation to her passenger list. Sun Cruises, Ltd., the operators of the Sun Vista, disclose in a press release that there were 472 passengers and 632 crew members on board, and that all landed safety either in Penang or Singapore. News reports from the BBC, AP, and Reuters add that ten elderly were hospitalized for shock. Other passengers have begun to return home, and still others plan to continue their vacation in Southeast Asia. The passenger list includes Americans, Britons, Australians, and Europeans. The owners of the ship indicate that the cause of the sinking remains under investigation. An electrical fire broke out in the engine room ar 3:30 p.m. At 6:30, the captain sent out a distress call. The passengers and crew started evacuating at 7:20 on Thursday, and the ship foundered at 2:20 a.m., Friday. The passengers and crew clambered onto 18 lifeboats and three inflatable rafts, sometimes filling the boats beyond capacity (according to news reports). Unlike the Titanic, the Sun Vista seems to have carried enough lifeboats and rafts to save everyone. (1503 died aboard the Titanic; 703 survived. The Titanic had a capacity for 3,547, but lifeboats for only 1178.) The Sun Vista was built in the sixties, refurbished in the late eighties, and began operating only over the past two years. It runs seven-day junkets from Singapore to Penang and Phuket, and returns to port in Singapore. It was returning to port on Friday, and planned to start on a new cruise on Sunday, when it struck disaster on the open seas. The Sun Vista sank in tranquil, warm, and well-traveled seas. Ferries and military craft quickly arrived to retrieve the occupants, but the rescue still took hours. Some passengers left the ship carrying little more than their clothes and life jackets. May 24, 1999