Drifter Michael is going to love this....

The Achille Lauro must have done something bad in an earlier life. It was launched way back before WW2 under a different name and was relaunched as the Achille Lauro in the 1960s after a major refit necessitated by an onboard explosion. Then in 1985 it was hijacked by a gang demanding the release of some Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. Finally in 1994, as Chucklefoot recounted, it sank in the Indian Ocean after an engine-room fire.

As this is a music-orientated forum I should add that during the 1985 hijacking a passenger was killed and this gave rise to an opera, The Death of Klinghoffer, staged in February this year at English National Opera, having been mothballed for 10 years in the face of protests against its suggesting that the hijackers had legitimate grievances.