Turkish authorities temporarily suspended ship traffic in both directions through the Istanbul Strait after Ivyan, a Malta-flagged chemical tanker, experienced an engine failure on Sunday, October 11.
The tanker lost propulsion at around 19:10 local time while transiting the Bosphorus and drifted off Kanlıca on Istanbul's Asian shore. The vessel came close to the shore before it anchored.
Ivyan was carrying 6,000 tonnes of vegetable oil from Varna in Bulgaria to Monopoli in Italy.
Turkey’s Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure said the General Directorate of Coastal Safety dispatched KEGM-4, the rescue boats Tahlisiye-2 and Tahlisiye-9, and the tugboats Kurtarma-7 and Kurtarma-11 to the scene.
The General Directorate of Coastal Safety later said the tanker had been safely anchored at the Küçükçekmece Anchorage Area.
The move was coordinated by the Istanbul Vessel Traffic Services Centre, with a pilot on board and Kurtarma-7 in attendance.
Traffic through the strait reopened once the vessel was secured.
The Bosphorus was also previously closed after a tanker engine failure in December 2024, when the Panama-flagged Cordelia Moon lost engine power while northbound near Yeniköy.