High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Betelgeuse incident, also known as the Betelgeuse or Whiddy Island disaster, occurred on 8 January 1979, at around 1:00 a.m., when the oil tanker Betelgeuse exploded in West Cork, Ireland, at the offshore jetty of the Whiddy Island Oil Terminal, due to the failure of the ship`s structure during an operation to discharge its cargo of oil. The tanker was owned by Total S.A., and the oil terminal was owned and operated by Gulf Oil.