Two Spaniards missing after Egyptian dive boat sinks

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

Red Sea Shadow

Contributor
Scuba Instructor
Messages
2,580
Reaction score
87
Two Spanish tourists are still missing in the Red Sea after their dive boat sank off Egypt's Sinai coast.

Fourteen other Spanish tourists and seven Egyptian crew were rescued after the 28m long 'Coral Princess' capsized and sank near Ras Mohamed. A naval boat was looking for the missing tourists, but had not spotted them more than five hours after the accident.

The privately-owned boat left the resort of Sharm El Sheikh heading to Ras Mohamed.

Eleven of the divers knew each other through the Javea Dolphins Dive Club in Valencia. Two of the other divers were from Catalunya and the other from Bilbao.

Whilst the survivors are trying to get all the paperwork sorted so that they can fly to Cairo and then onto Spain, the search continues for Pérez and González who have not been seen since the boat sank yesterday close to the coast in this popular tourist destination on the Sinai peninsula.

It is believed that their bodies are still in the boat, which now lies hundreds of meters below the surface. The people in charge of the Javea Diving School Dolphins are to fly out to Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt today in an effort to find their two missing members. They will join in the search and rescue efforts as soon as they arrive.

Luis Miró and another of the surviors, who only wanted to be identified by his initials, A.D., are still suffering from physical injuries sustained as the boat sank. A.D. has severe bruising to his feet and is convinced that one of his toes is broken.

One of the survivors, Jorge Sánchez, told the press that the official reports of the incident blaming rough seas for the boat sinking, were inaccurate. "There were no waves and no wind", he said.

All the survivors have been critical of the crew's handling of the incident. "The captain was the first to jump ship, and he didn't warn the rest of us or send an emergency signal to the coastguards", they said.

Gorka Rotaeche, originally from Bilbao, but now living in Madrid, compared the whole event to a scene from 'Titanic' saying that there were no life jackets and the crew were incompetent, getting themselves into the lifeboat first and then being completely incapable of helping the others.


Alberto Alcalá who was on the dive trip with his 18-year-old daughter, Sara, described the captain and crew as "incompetent idiots". "Two people have drowned," he added, "but it could easily have been all of us."

Source: Two Spaniards missing after Egyptian dive boat sinks
 
Wow, I have seen alot of dive boats sink in the red sea, Or egyptian waters anyways, now the crew in this instance is insane, yet nobody knew it was sinking has me puzzled. Yes it would apppear that the spaniards went down, or had something to do with the sinkin is what I'm thinkin.
Time will tell, although it is a disadvantage to find answers at the depth the dive boat is resting at. Rov time.

Happy Diving
 
Is there any emergency process on these boats or "Allah will help" ? hope the missing persons will be found okay soon
 
I asked the thistlegorm dm's what had happened the day after it sank. They were playing it down saying that the 2 missing persons had returned to the sinking boat after everyone safely evacuated. Can't see anyone being too bothered about their passport etc when in that situation.

The rumour mill in dahab is that the bilge bump failed, engine room flooded. boat doomed and the captain abandoned ship without raising any alarm. I too heard that he was first off
 

Back
Top Bottom