Saturday 27 April 2024 · below the Index · spike
Houthis attack tanker Andromeda Star in Red Sea
On April 27, 2024, Yemen's Houthi rebels launched a missile attack on the Panama-flagged oil tanker Andromeda Star in the Red Sea, causing damage to the vessel. The incident occurred amid ongoing Houthi attacks on commercial shipping in the region and heightened geopolitical tensions affecting maritime trade routes.
Peak 82.2 on Monday 29 April 2024. The shaded band is the incident window.
Where the attention came from
Social-led, both over the window and on the peak day. Social here is X alone — Bluesky only joins the series from July 2024 — so its level isn't directly comparable with today's series, though its share of this incident is real.
Bar = share of the extra attention over the whole window; the tick marks the share on the peak day alone, where the two differ.
How unusual it was
This was above 79% of all days since 2020, and the highest since Friday 19 April 2024.
How far it spread
No vessel type moved — 0 of 6 vessel-type groups drew clearly more readers than usual.
Readers here means readers of the Wikipedia article on each vessel type — the same source as the Research signal, not news coverage — so an incident can dominate the news without moving this panel. Bars start at 1× — normal readership for that vessel type, the weeks before the incident. Grey = no clear lift. "Over time" shows each group's daily readers through the window; "All 12 articles" breaks the six groups back into their members.
How it was framed the frame glossary →
Lead frame: geopolitical pawn. Trade press was 6% of in-scope coverage — the story had left the trade press and gone mainstream. (Historical coverage is scored on headlines only.)
Acting, or acted upon
In 71% of coverage shipping was the thing acted upon rather than the actor.
How the coverage sounded
Coverage ran 79% negative overall; 35% strongly so.
Each article is scored on a five-step scale from strongly negative to strongly positive; the bar is the share of coverage at each step.
Sample of the headlines
- Oil tankers | India-Bound Oil Tanker Andromeda Star Hit By Missiles In Red Sea, Say Yemen's Houthistelegraphindia.com · 2024-04-27
- Yemen's Houthis Attack Andromeda Star Oil Tanker In Red Seamenafn.com · 2024-04-27
- Andromeda Star: Ballistic missiles fired by Yemen's Houthi rebels damage Panama-flagged oil tanker en route to India from Russia in Red Seaindiatimes.com · 2024-04-27
Gold rule = a national or international outlet, not a trade title.
- social = X only before Bluesky (2024-07-01); not comparable with today's series
- Registered in a single underlying series only — one vessel-type article, news term or social query — and never moved the Index itself.
- The coverage panels count only articles matched to this incident specifically.
Maritime Attention Index, incident: Houthis attack tanker Andromeda Star in Red Sea, peak 82.2 on 29 April 2024. maritimeattentionindex.com/incidents/2024-houthis-attack-tanker-andromeda-star-in-red-sea/