Dangerous modifications, defective or missing safety equipment, blocked escape routes and skipped briefings – these were recurring issues identified among 16 incidents involving Red Sea dive-boats that have resulted in numerous deaths, including those of UK nationals, over the past five years.
Now the UK’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) has followed up on its December letter to the Egyptian authorities expressing concerns about liveaboard safety by issuing a safety bulletin for anyone considering taking a Red Sea dive-boat holiday.
Also read: Tourist boat capsizes in Gulf of Suez
MAIB has looked in particular at three incidents that occurred in the past 20 months, involving the Carlton Queen, which capsized near Hurghada with several people injured, including UK nationals, in April 2023; Hurricane, which caught fire that June and was abandoned near Elphinstone Reef, with the loss of three UK guests; and, last November, Sea Story, which foundered south of Port Ghalib with four bodies recovered and seven other people, including a UK couple, missing presumed dead.
The branch says that among the key safety issues it has identified is that boats were poorly constructed and often substantially modified or extended, causing some to become unstable.
Essential life-saving equipment was defective, out-of-date for service and, in some cases, missing, says the branch. Where fires had broken out, their rapid spread indicated poor structural fire protection, compounded by equipment such as fire-detection systems and extinguishers being either missing or defective.
Emergency escape routes were via lockable doors, had no emergency lighting and were unmarked, while safety briefings for guests were either of a poor standard or not conducted at all. Crews appeared poorly trained and unfamiliar with their vessels.
The MAIB safety bulletin points out that liveaboard holidays are often marketed “using ratings and reviews posted online that are not necessarily accurate and do not assure safety standards”.
Crucially, it is also concerned that a number of guests have found themselves switched to a boat other than the one they had booked on arrival in Egypt, “which has negated their attempts to holiday on a safe vessel”.
Other incidents from the second half of 2024 reported on Divernet involved the Nouran, which caught fire in November; Seaduction, which sank in October; and Exocet, which hit a reef in June.
Advice for divers
MAIB recommends that prospective guests book liveaboard holidays only through reputable vendors that are able to provide assurance about safety standards.
Once onboard, divers should request that the crew provide a thorough safety briefing before departure. This should be expected to cover emergency exits and warning signals, muster stations, location and use of safety equipment and abandon-ship procedures.
“While MAIB does not have the jurisdiction to investigate accidents involving non-UK flagged vessels operating within the territorial waters of another coastal state, we have made the appropriate authorities aware of our national interest and offered every assistance with any safety investigation they conduct,” says MAIB’s chief inspector of marine accidents Andrew Moll.
The UK is registered as a substantially interested state in the Egyptian safety investigations into these incidents, with Moll’s letter in December addressed to the Egyptian Authority for Maritime Safety (EAMS).
Warning that Red Sea dive-boats are “unlikely to be built, maintained, equipped and operated to the standard of similar vessels in the UK”, MAIB urges “the exercise of extreme caution when choosing a boat”. The safety bulletin can be found on its website.
Also on Divernet: Efforts to coerce Sea Story diver-survivors reported by BBC. ’Our dive liveaboard capsized: Now what?’, Red Sea liveaboard sinks at Abu Nuhas, Hurricane divers died – & another liveaboard incident
