MS Scandinavian Star, originally named MS Massalia, was a car and passenger ferry built in France in 1971. The ship was set on fire on April 7, 1990, killing 159 people. The official investigation determined the fire had been caused by a convicted arsonist who died in the blaze. This finding has since been disputed. After a lengthy period of lay-up after the fire, she was eventually repaired and refitted and put back into ferry service as the Regal Voyager, initially in the Mediterranean, and later in the Caribbean. She was eventually scrapped in 2004. History M/S Massalia was built by Dubigeon-Normandie SA in 1971 and delivered to Compagnie de Paquebots, which put her on the company's Marseille–Málaga–Casablanca route. The ship also conducted cruises in the Mediterranean Sea. By 1984 she had been owned by a number of companies and renamed Stena Baltica, Island Fiesta and finally Scandinavian Star, a name given to her by Scandinavian World Cruises. Scandinavian Star was chartered for cruises between St. Petersburg/Tampa, Florida, United States, to Cozumel, Quintana Roo, Mexico. Scandinavian Star had been stricken by other fires throughout its history. During the investigation of the 1990 fire, investigators learned that unreported fires had also occurred in 1985, caused by a deep-fryer, and twice more in 1988, the first caused by a broken lubricating pipe. On 15 March 1988, just a few days after the first fire, Scandinavian Star was about northeast of Cancún when a second fire started in the engine room. The ship, which was then carrying 439 passengers and 268 crew members, lost its power supply and emergency oxygen system, hampering the fire crew's efforts. The inability of the crewmembers to communicate effectively with each other and with passengers was a serious concern and created confusion during the firefighting and evacuation procedures. Fire In 1990, Scandinavian Star was put into service on the Oslo-Frederikshavn route for the Norwegian shipping line DA-NO Linjen. As she had been converted from a casino ship to a passenger ferry, Scandinavian Stars new crew had to be trained in just ten days to learn new responsibilities, whereas six to eight weeks would have been a reasonable period to train a crew for a ship of its size. Many of the crew could not speak English, Norwegian or Danish, thus further reducing the effectiveness of the crew's response to an emergency. Erik Stein, technical leader for the Norwegian