Cops to grill crew of doomed tourist yacht as hero diver tells how he saved five people
The surviving crew members of the capsized Egyptian yacht are set to be questioned, as an Egyptian diver has told of how he helped save five survivors trapped on the vessel.
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The surviving crew members of the capsized Egyptian tourist yacht are set to be questioned by police as part of a major investigation into the tragedy.
It comes as the search continues for the seven people still missing after the boat sank off the eastern Egyptian coast on Monday, local time.
A total of 33 people survived, while four bodies have been recovered from the wreckage.
An incredible rescue story has also emerged, with an Egyptian diver telling how he helped save five survivors who were trapped in an air pocket on the sunken vessel.
Khattab al-Faramawy told the BBC it was incredibly difficult to search all the rooms on-board the four deck boat.
“We were using torch lights to try to find our way into the darkness, it was quite a complicated mission,” he said.
Mr al-Faramawy’s desire to find survivors was personal.
His 23-year-old nephew Youssef, who was working as a diving instructor on the yacht, was among those who had been missing more than 24 hours.
Youssef’s father Hussam said the moment he was told his brother had found his son he felt immense relief.
“He was trying to save the passengers on board but got locked in one of the cabins,” Hussam al-Faramawy told the BBC.
“I could do nothing but pray to God to help my boy, and thankfully his uncle finally saved him.
“I couldn’t tell his mother what happened to the boat, she would have died immediately. I only told her after I realised that he survived.”
DARK PAST OF YACHT REVEALED
The dive firm that used the Egyptian yacht has been involved in two other serious incidents in the last three years.
Dive Pro Liveaboard, a popular expedition group in the Red Sea, were involved with the five-day trip that ended in tragedy when the Sea Story boat capsized, The Sun reports.
The luxury yacht took just five minutes to sink with tourists still trapped inside, The Sun reports.
A military-led team rescued two Belgians, one Swiss national, one Finnish tourist and one Egyptian, Red Sea governor Amr Hanafi said.
The Sea Story had been carrying 31 tourists of multiple nationalities and a 13-member crew when it was hit by a large wave near Marsa Alam in southeastern Egypt.
On board were people from Belgium, Britain, China, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland and the United States.
As search teams continued the hunt for the survivors, Dive Pro Liveaboard’s previous safety breaches emerged.
Dive Pro Liveaboard was the main operator for the Scuba Scene yacht, which caught on fire and sank while out on the Red Sea in April 2022, forcing passengers to evacuate.
A second fire broke out on board a Dive Pro Liveaboard vessel earlier this year.
A boat known as Sea Legend was left badly damaged in February after a blaze on deck before it started to sink, forcing passengers to evacuate, The Sun reports.
RESCUE MISSION TO SAVE PASSENGERS
The yacht embarked on Sunday on a multi-day diving trip from Port Ghalib near Marsa Alam in the southeast, and had been due to dock on Friday at the town of Hurghada, 200km north.
Governor Amr Hanafi said some survivors were rescued by an aircraft, while others were transported to safety aboard a warship.
“Intensive search operations are underway in co-ordination with the navy and the armed forces,” Hanafi added in a statement.
Beijing’s embassy in Egypt said two of its nationals were “in good health” after being “rescued in the cruise ship sinking accident in the Red Sea”, Chinese state media reported.
The Finnish foreign ministry confirmed to AFP that one of its nationals is missing.
Polish foreign ministry spokesman Pawel Wronski said authorities “have information that two of the tourists may have had Polish citizenship”.
“That’s all we know about them. That’s all we can say for now,” he told national news agency PAP.
‘LARGE WAVE’
The Red Sea governor said initial reports suggest “a sudden and large wave” struck the boat, causing it to capsize within 5-7 minutes.
Some passengers were unable to escape as they were inside their cabins at the time, he added.
According to a manager of a diving resort close to the rescue operation, one surviving crew member said they were “hit by a wave in the middle of the night, throwing the vessel on its side”.
The governor said the vessel had passed its latest safety inspection in March 2024, with no technical issues reported.
Authorities in the Red Sea capital of Hurghada on Sunday local time shut down marine activities and the city’s port due to “bad weather conditions”.
But winds around Marsa Alam had remained favourable until Sunday night, the diving manager told AFP, before calming again by morning.
By Monday afternoon, it had become increasingly unlikely that those missing would be rescued “after 12 hours in the water”, he said, requesting anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media.
The Marsa Alam area saw at least two similar boat accidents earlier this year but there were no fatalities.
The Red Sea coast is a major tourist destination in Egypt, a country of 105 million that is in the grip of a serious economic crisis.
Nationally, the tourism sector employs two million people and generates more than 10 per cent of GDP.
Dozens of dive boats crisscross between Red Sea coral reefs and islands off Egypt’s eastern coast every day, where safety regulations are robust but unevenly enforced.
Earlier this month, 30 people were rescued from a sinking dive boat near the Red Sea’s Daedalus reef.
In June, two dozen French tourists were evacuated safely before their boat sank in a similar accident.
Last year, three British tourists died when a fire broke out on their yacht, engulfing it in flames.
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Originally published as Cops to grill crew of doomed tourist yacht as hero diver tells how he saved five people