The
Whiddy Island disaster, also known as the
Betelgeuse incident, occurred on 8 January 1979, at around 1:00 a.m., when the
oil tanker Betelgeuse exploded in
Bantry Bay, at the offshore jetty for the
oil terminal at
Whiddy Island, Ireland. The explosion was attributed to the failure of the ship's structure during an operation to discharge its cargo of
oil. The tanker was owned by
Total S.A., and the oil terminal was owned and operated by
Gulf Oil.