[4] The 400-metre-long (1,300 ft), 224,000-ton, 20,000 TEU vessel was buffeted by strong winds on the morning of 23 March, and ended up wedged across the waterway with its bow and stern stuck on opposite canal banks, blocking all traffic until it could be freed.

The Suez Canal Authority (SCA) engaged Boskalis through its subsidiary Smit International to manage marine salvage operations.

The vessel was subsequently impounded by the Egyptian government on 13 April when its owner and insurers refused to pay the demanded billion-dollar compensation.

[24] At the time of the incident, she was registered in Panama,[25] owned by the Japanese firm Shoei Kisen Kaisha,[26] leased to the Taiwan-based container shipping company Evergreen Marine for operation, and managed by Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement,[27] and crewed by Indian nationals.

[28] The owner Shoei Kisen Kaisha had protection and indemnity (third party) liability coverage for $3.1 billion[29] with mutual UK P&I Club[30] in the Japanese market.

Wind gusts will cause the stacked containers to "act like a sail" to blow the heavy ship off course, and its enormous momentum makes it difficult to recover.

Strong winds exceeding 40 kn (74 km/h; 46 mph)[39] resulted in the "loss of the ability to steer the ship", causing the hull to deviate.

The Ever Given's sister ship, Ever Greet, was affected by the disruption,[49] as were two Russian Navy vessels: Steregushchiy-class corvette Stoikiy and Altay-class oiler Kola.

Kola had been involved in a minor collision with bulk carrier Ark Royal earlier that day; the two were anchored roughly 11 km (5.9 nmi) away from each other for the duration of the incident.

[52][53] On the same day, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi's advisor on seaports stated that he expected the canal to be cleared in "48–72 hours, maximum".

[55] On 26 March, the SCA accepted an offer made by a United States Navy assessment team of dredging experts to assist in efforts to remove the ship.

[6][7] Over a dozen tugboats were brought to tow and push the ship, and suction dredgers to remove sand and silt from under her bow and stern.

Backup plans contemplated unloading the 18,300 TEU of 15-tonne containers[a] using large floating cranes or even heavy lift helicopters, but this was deemed impractical and hazardous.

[65] Osama Rabie, SCA chairman, told a press conference that weather conditions were "not the main reasons" for the ship's grounding, adding that "there may have been technical or human errors", and that all factors would be investigated.

[7] On 29 March, the stern of Ever Given was refloated at 04:30 local time (02:30 UTC), and a second seagoing tug, the Italian Carlo Magno, with a bollard pull of 153 tonnes arrived, giving a further large increase in towing capacity.

[71] On 31 March, with the Ever Given at anchor in the Great Bitter Lake along the canal, divers and SCA investigators started inspecting the ship for damage, as well as interrogating the crew to determine the causes of the grounding.

[78][79] SCA head Osama Rabie demanded a billion-dollar compensation for lost revenue and the cost of the salvage operation, and warned that legal battles could prevent the departure of the ship.

[80] The previous time this was invoked, following the 2018 fire on the Maersk Honam, the adjustor fixed a salvage payment of 54% of the value for cargo owners to recover their property.

[85] The Indian crew members remained effectively detained on board,[84] although two of the 25 were allowed to depart on 15 April due to "urgent personal circumstances".

[88] Parallels were made with the MV Aman (IMO 9215517), detained in the canal since July 2017 due to safety and regulatory issues and with one crew member obliged to remain on board as legal guardian.

The incident exposed a need to investigate issues of supply chain resilience and disruption to just-in-time manufacturing already facing shortages from COVID-19 pandemic impacts.

James Williams, energy economist at WTRG Economics, said that in light of existing stocks "a few days of slowdown in [oil] delivery is not critical to the market".

[116] This kind of disruption is not unique to the incident: the historical trend for shipping rates to rise after interruptions in the supply chain is well documented, and analysts such as Ioannis Theotokas of the University of Piraeus noted that the crisis "led to a lot of losses for freight owners and charterers", and that a prolonged closure could have had impacts similar to the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.

[117] Some freight forwarders noted that demand for alternative means of transportation was expected to rise within the next few weeks on Europe to Asia routes, as a consequence of shippers seeking to avoid the disruption and uncertainty caused by the blockage of the canal.

[118] Following the resolution of the incident, forwarders in India noted difficulties with securing shipments to Europe or Africa, with many prior bookings cancelled and increased freight rates hitting small and medium-sized exporters particularly harshly.

Rising political tensions raise fears that ill-intentioned actors could similarly disrupt a tightly interconnected global economy by weaponising its chokepoints in the future, despite the prohibition of waterway blockades under the 1888 Constantinople Convention, with devastating effects for world trade.

[130] Individual suggestions for fixing the incident in a joking manner were also spread on Twitter, alongside comments over the relevance of some users' feeling that their personal issues corresponded to the ship being stuck.

[136][113] On the day that the Ever Given was unblocked, Google celebrated the event by adding in an Easter egg where searching "Suez Canal" or "Ever Given" would display an animation of boats moving along the sidebar.

[141] False rumours were also spread blaming the grounding on the first Egyptian female ship captain, apparently based on a doctored Arab News publication.

The female officer in question was actually first mate on board the Aida IV, which was hundreds of miles away in Alexandria at the time of the incident.