May 19, 1999 off Singapore the Sun Vista caught fire. She was built in Italy in 1963 as Galileo Galilei and was used on the Genoa to Sydney route until 1977. After a refit as a cruise ship she sailed on short cruises in the Mediterranean and was sold to the company that started Celebrity Cruises in 1988. In 1997 she was bought by a Singapore company and used for cruising between Singapore and Thailand. The day of the fire she was carrying 472 passengers and 632 crew. While the crew were criticized for allowing panic there was not one death, however the ship sank from the amount of water pumped into her to fight the fire.

Galileo Galilei