Kategorie: News
Information and interview with three fellow travellers
A tragic fire leads to the sinking of the Sea Legend in the Red Sea: Due to a cable fire, the Sea Legend, a diving boat operated by Dive Pro Liveaboard, caught fire on 22 February and caught fire. The vessel sank as a result. The incident happened at night during a diving trip about 3 kilometres from the coast. A German diver has been missing ever since.
Official wording
The official reports from Egypt left no doubt for a few days that everything was being done to prevent a catastrophe:
"Despite the impending disaster, all persons on board the Sea Legend were rescued unharmed. At the time of the incident, there were 17 tourists from various countries and a crew of 14 on board the ship."
"All 31 people on board the Sea Legend have been confirmed safe,"
another source told Cairo 24 newspaper, emphasising the efficiency of the rescue operations. Interestingly, Michael, one of the rescued, speaks of incompetence and arrogance (see below or directly in Taucher.Net Talk) and good luck that there were no other victims during the rescue operation.
The reports published in Egypt and the persistence with which the notoriously false information was held on to are unfortunately a recurring pattern. In view of the increasing number of disasters, it is high time for a rethink by the official authorities.
Interview with 3 divers from the M/Y Sea Legend
On 1 March, we summarised all available information on the M/Y Sea Legend accident and on Sunday we published an interview with the divers who were on board during the accident. When we hear about everything that went wrong with the Dive Pro Liveaboard-operated vessel during the accident and rescue, we are speechless. Take your time, it is very detailed and also explains why one person could not be rescued.
Terrifying insights into the disaster involving the M/Y Sea Legend
An inadequate safety introduction; more an overview of the services and the general ship's equipment were the content of the "introduction" on board. This introduction also mentioned 13 crew members, but after the rescue there were 14 Egyptian employees who disembarked. This discrepancy in the number of crew members led the authorities to assume that no one was missing and to maintain this statement for several days.
Only some of the cabins were equipped with life jackets, but these were inadequate. No rescue drill was carried out and, even more dramatically, no instruction was given on possible rescue routes from the lower decks to the top. The installed smoke detectors were probably mostly non-functional; the guests at least did not notice the integrated LED flashing.
On the night of the accident, Michael noticed the smell of diving at around 3:30/3:40 am. This came from a hatch in the lower deck that led to the kitchen. After a few minutes, flames were already coming out of the hatch. Jana and father Heinrich (cabin on the upper deck) were warned by a fellow traveller with "Get out, get out". Michael, who had his cabin on the lower deck, was also warned by a "Get out", but I can't say who it was.
A Swiss fellow traveller tried to extinguish the fire himself, the crew ran around in a rather uncoordinated manner, but it was not until the third fire extinguisher was found that one worked. Overall, there was no proper rescue chain, the passengers were allowed to orientate themselves and make their way to the zodiacs - some of the staff were praying to Allah in the meantime and the chaos on board was probably quite violent. Jana spoke of an extremely uncoordinated operation. None of the crew took responsibility. The situation was exacerbated by the fact that the ship accelerated during the "rescue minutes", which fuelled the fire, blew smoke into the passenger/crew group and, last but not least, made it very difficult to transfer to the Zodiacs. In the end, the people without life jackets had to transfer to the unlit Zodiacs; whereby transferring here meant jumping into the rather choppy sea and swimming to the Zodiacs.
One of the Zodiacs was not properly inflated or was leaking; the air chambers were therefore only partially filled. In addition, the motor of the other inflatable boat was not working; the boat had to be towed by the working but problematically filled one. After the Zodias were able to cover some distance to the ship, explosions from the Sea Legend could be heard and seen. On the inflatable boats, the crew did not take care of the guests either; by chance it became known that not even an emergency call was made, whereupon some guests with mobile phones - after a good hour - made emergency calls (network accessibility). There were no lamps or other light sources on the Zodiacs.
The Zodiac, which had been problematic since the beginning, filled up with water over time. Jana spoke of a dramatic situation. The person steering the engine was already knee-deep in water. The line to the towed Zodiac was cut after a good two hours and an attempt was made to head for the coast at full speed in order to reach coastal waters before the Zodiac finally "sank"; according to Heinrich's assessment, they reached the coastal reef at the very last minute. The Zodiac would probably not have lasted any longer. The second inflatable boat, the unpowered Zodiac, also took on water, but the occupants of the Zodiac were all able to "keep the water in check" to some extent. However, they were now drifting on the open sea without an engine and had to continue waiting for rescue.
The "rescue" by the Egyptian Navy was also an uncoordinated operation that initially failed completely because the transfer from the Zodiac to the naval vessel simply did not work in the choppy seas - due to an untrained crew combined with poor equipment. It was only later via the military ship's Zodiac that the passengers could be transferred with difficulty. Michael, who was on this Zodiac, spoke of the poor training of the crew coupled with great arrogance, which led to this disastrous operation where fortunately nobody was injured. The landing later on the coast was probably quite bizarre with a red carpet rolled out and soldiers standing in a line and a crowd of photographers and journalists; the essential things such as medical examinations or interviews about the completeness of the rescued safari guests were not carried out at first.
It was only after all the rescued passengers had come ashore and were reunited with the occupants of Zodiac 1 that the diving guests themselves realised that only 16 of the 17 international guests had arrived. One passenger was missing. Neither the navy nor the crew had initiated such an action.
Some of the group's other experiences, including the problems on the journey home, were also hair-raising. The catastrophic handling of the missing passenger is also exemplary of this terrible accident. To get a complete overview of what happened, it is worth listening to the interview (Taucher.Net Talk) in full.
youTube Interview (in German language)
Bachelor thesis on safety on safari ships
Following the capsizing of the liveaboard vessel Carlton Queen almost a year ago in Egypt on 25 April 2023, a number of activities were launched to get to the bottom of the causes of such accidents. One of these measures is a bachelor's thesis entitled "Investigation of a series of accidents involving yachts on diving holidays", which was written between June and November 2023 by Justus Schiszler at the Kiel University of Applied Sciences in the Shipbuilding and Maritime Engineering degree programme. In the study, accidents involving liveaboard vessels since 2006 were recorded and grouped according to the presumed causes of the accidents.
News item: Bachelor thesis, Liveaboard diving trips in focus - marince accidents
Further information:
News item: Fire / Sinking of the Sea Legend
youTube Interview / Taucher.Net Talk (in German)