On the night of March 25th, the river cruise vessel A-Rosa Sena was involved in an allision with a road bridge on the outskirts of Amsterdam, an incident that resulted in minor injury to one crew member and the later evacuation of more than 200 passengers after the ship lost electrical power.
The 135-metre passenger vessel, built in 2022 and sailing under the Swiss flag, had departed Amsterdam earlier that day and was proceeding toward Utrecht and onward to Cologne when the accident occurred at approximately 9:30 p.m. local time.
At the time of the incident the vessel was navigating from the IJ toward the Amsterdam–Rhine Canal. While approaching the Amsterdamsebrug, a road bridge opened to traffic in 1957 with a vertical clearance of about 9.5 metres, the ship struck the underside of the structure. Reports indicated that the vessel’s wheelhouse—designed to be raised or lowered to pass beneath bridges—remained in the elevated position as the ship entered the span. The impact crushed the wheelhouse structure.
Following the initial contact, the vessel continued moving ahead. During this movement the radar mast at the stern was bent, and the ship subsequently touched the canal wall before finally coming to a halt. Passengers later recounted that a pronounced jolt had been felt throughout the vessel at the moment of impact.
Emergency services, including police units and an ambulance, arrived shortly afterwards. The helmsman sustained minor injuries and received medical treatment, while no passengers were reported injured. The ship remained manoeuvrable for a short distance after the collision and was able to proceed slightly farther along the canal, where it was brought alongside to allow emergency teams to board and assess the situation.
Several hours after the accident the vessel suffered a loss of electrical power, leaving it without lighting. Authorities subsequently decided to evacuate everyone on board. Passengers—many of whom had been asleep—were awakened and instructed to gather their belongings before leaving the vessel. They were escorted ashore across a small dyke to the nearby roadway, where buses arranged by the operator transported them onward to Cologne.
The 5-deck river cruise ship, capable of accommodating up to 280 passengers, was unable to continue its scheduled voyage due to the damage sustained in the collision and was expected to be towed back to Amsterdam. In the aftermath of the incident, the canal remained partly closed to vessel traffic while the bridge underwent inspection. The structure was later reopened to road traffic after authorities declared it safe.
The vessel had begun its journey from Amsterdam earlier that day and had been scheduled to reach Cologne by the weekend before continuing on another cruise toward Hamburg.
For more A-Rosa Sena incidents and accidents, see the ship's CruiseMinus page.