The recent spate of Red Sea dive-boat disasters has not escaped the attention of British government investigators.
The Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) has just made its concerns public, with the chief inspector of marine accidents Captain Andrew Moll writing to the Egyptian Authority for Maritime Safety (EAMS) to set out his concerns and request full participation in its investigations.
Also read: Dive liveaboard sinks in Raja Ampat
“From the evidence the MAIB has obtained so far there is cause for serious concern about the safety of some of the Egyptian dive-boats operating in the Red Sea,” states the branch.
Moll, who joined the MAIB from the Royal Navy in 2005 and has led the unit as chief inspector since 2018, is charged with looking into causes of maritime accidents, publishing reports with safety recommendations and aiming to increase awareness of how marine accidents occur.
From a number of recent incidents involving Egyptian dive-boats operating in the Red Sea, the MAIB is concentrating on three that occurred over the past 20 months and involved UK citizens.
These concerned the Carlton Queen, which capsized on 24 April, 2023, resulting in the liveaboard being abandoned but all passengers and crew rescued; Hurricane, which caught fire on 11 June, 2023 with the deaths of three UK nationals; and, most recently, Sea Story, which capsized on 25 November this year.
The MAIB states that the latter sinking resulted in as many as 18 fatalities or people going missing, including two UK nationals. Divernet had previously understood that the most recent casualty list totalled 11, with four bodies found and seven people unaccounted for, and has sought clarification from the MAIB.
Following the protocols in the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) Casualty Investigation Code, the MAIB has formally registered the UK as a “substantially interested state” in the Egyptian safety investigations into these incidents.
Other such occurrences in the Egyptian Red Sea from the second half of 2024 that were also reported on Divernet involved the Nouran, which caught fire on 6 November; Seaduction, which sank on 24 October; and Exocet, which hit a reef on 25 June.
The MAIB says it is currently preparing a safety bulletin for publication, setting out the areas of concern that individuals intending to take a liveaboard diving holiday in the Red Sea region should take into account before booking.
Also on Divernet: ‘Our dive liveaboard capsized: Now what?’, Red Sea liveaboard sinks at Abu Nuhas, Hurricane divers died – & another liveaboard incident, British divers missing from Sea Story named
How to open a can of worms ??? look at the dive industry in Egypt
Egypt is at the top of my list of boats I would never dive from or stay on board.
People should be very careful about booking dive trips on these boats, their nautical skills leave a great deal to be worried about.
I dive on an English boat with the owner on board a lot we were out the same week as sea story and saw a lot of the debris and an upturned rib from the boat
Interesting post. What nationality is the owner, he is British?
Yes he is and we were doing drills from the start. All cabins fitted with carbon monoxide alarms . Life vest drills etc etc
Happy New Year and hope this year allows you to dive as much as you can.
I would suggest you promote this owner and his vessel as much as possible, sounds ideal..