New investigative findings from German magazine stern and broadcaster RTL confirm what Green Prophet reported on last year: Egypt’s luxury liveaboard dive boat industry has systemic safety problems that put lives at risk. Their joint undercover investigation into the sinking of the Sea Story in November 2024 — a disaster that killed 11 people — reveals a chain of failures by the captain, operator, and authorities.

On November 25, 2024, the Sea Story capsized and sank in the Red Sea with 30 divers and 15 crew aboard. Among the dead were three Germans, two Britons, two Poles, one Slovak, and three Egyptians. Initial official statements blamed a “giant wave,” but stern and RTL’s review of Egyptian prosecutor files found that waves were only about two metres high — far from extreme conditions. One survivor we spoke with said the sea was not rough when the boast started listing and sinking.

According to the Hurghada public prosecutor, the vessel should never have left port. The captain lacked the required operating licence, and the company, Dive Pro Liveaboards, had no authorisation to run the ship on the high seas. People we spoke with said that the captain wasn’t driving the boat, it was the cook and he was stoned.

Despite this, military forces at the port reportedly approved the voyage. Investigators also documented serious structural stability deficiencies in the vessel’s design.

These revelations mirror Green Prophet’s earlier reporting on the Sea Story’s instability and poor safety gear, and on Dive Pro’s previous fatal accident involving the Sea Legend fire in February 2024 (read our coverage here).

Undercover Safety Audit

To investigate wider industry standards, stern and RTL sent undercover reporters onto 17 liveaboard vessels across three Egyptian ports. Their findings — confirmed by international marine safety experts — were damning:

• All vessels had safety deficiencies; most were serious or very serious.
• Life jackets were often unsuitable; life rafts were inadequate.
• Many lower decks lacked proper bulkheads; some ships had missing or inaccessible emergency exits.
• Navigation and communication equipment was missing on some boats.
• Unsafe practices, such as smoking in the engine room while the diesel engine was running, were observed.

Marine engineer Mick Uberti of Maritime Survey International, who reviewed the findings, said these results match his company’s inspections over the past two years — all eight ships they examined in Egypt were “in poor condition.” The UK’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) has also concluded that many Red Sea dive safari ships are “poorly constructed.”

Pattern of Accidents

Green Prophet has tracked a troubling pattern of incidents in the region. In our follow-up report on the rescue site, survivors described missing safety drills and inadequate emergency preparation. Other industry accidents — from dive boat fires to groundings — suggest the Sea Story tragedy is part of a wider safety crisis in Egypt.

In the past three years alone, more than half of the world’s liveaboard dive boats that have run aground, burned, or sunk were operating off Egypt’s Red Sea coast — one of the most popular destinations for European dive tourism.

Unanswered Questions

The stern and RTL investigation raises urgent questions for Egyptian regulators:

• Why were licensing and vessel classification rules ignored?
• What inspections — if any — did the Sea Story pass before departure?
• Were official weather advisories ignored?
• What mechanisms ensure safety compliance for operators?

Until these questions are answered and meaningful reforms are made, divers and tourists face unacceptable risks in Egyptian waters. Dive at your own risk.

The full stern and RTL documentary, “Death Trap Red Sea – Journey into Disaster”, will be available from September 11, 6:45 p.m. CET on stern.de and RTL+.

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On November 25, a dive boat called Sea Story with 44 souls capsized an estimated 18 nautical miles south of Marsa Alam, Egypt on the Red Sea. Some were rescued within half a day from rescue boats and the Navy. on November 25 Another 5 people were rescued the following day, some 36 hours after capsizing. Rescue divers went down and pulled 5 living people and 4 bodies from the wreck. Seven people are still missing. In total, 11 people lost their lives on this dive boat.

There are rumors that suggest that some people may have been trapped inside the wreck for the next few days after rescue on November 26 but the divers may have been too afraid to enter the wreck for the sharks circling the craft. Others connected to the rescue say this is nonsense. That the boat was searched from room to room on November 26. Here is a rescue story from one of the rescue team here (in Arabic).

Whatever the rumors, in a sad turn of events a boat of rescue divers were within a “30 minutes” boat ride and they could have assisted in the operation, one diver wrote, after seeing the outcome.

“At the time of the accident we were 30 minutes from the See Story boat full of professional technical divers with experience in salvaging from a sunken ship. One phone call and everything was different,” says Radik Simic in a popular Scuba diving Facebook group.

The families of those lost and those surviving still do not have accountability and closure. “What about foreign embassies and ambassadors? They should be responding because that’s what they’re paid to do. I don’t know what countries the divers were from to assist with this. Feeling incredibly sad to hear these obstacles impeding getting information, accountability and closure,” says one commenter on a recent article we posted to a Scuba diving group.

Could there have been a better outcome if dive boats and rescue divers are connected to a global alerts system? Can there be an app for that? How about a Whatsapp or Telegram chat group (international and country based) so that rescue divers the world over can get a call and rescue when in need? What diving group wants to start such an initiative?

All the Sea Story articles, including a story from a survivor can be found here.

If you have any new details about the Sea Story accident, please email seastory@greenprophet.com

American diver Jeffy Lee has travelled to Egypt: “It makes my blood boil at the fact that a few of us even had knowledge of such a catastrophic event and I personally found out about it from this group,” he says. “None of the media even gave two shits about the incident because it wasn’t an exciting “story” for them. Eleven lives were lost, and could have been prevented had it not been the ignorance and failure to follow standard protocols.

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Accounts from divers that are in Egypt: the liveaboard boats wating to take divers to exotic dive locations are currently grounded. Could this have something to do with MAIB in the UK?

The Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) in the United Kingdom has been notified of three accidents within the last 20 months affecting UK citizens on Egyptian dive boats operating in the Red Sea.

MAIB writes that these accidents include: the capsize of Carlton Queen on 24 April 2023 resulting in abandonment of the vessel with all passengers and crew rescued; a fire on Hurricane on 11 June 2023 resulting in the deaths of 3 UK nationals; the capsize of Sea Story on 25 November 2024 resulting in up to 18 fatalities/people missing, including 2 UK nationals, Jenny Cawson, 36, and her husband Tarig Sinada, 49, from Devon.

Another accident occurred this week but all 28 people were rescued. The accident allegedly included a refurbished wooden boat.

A miraculous rescue after 36 hours – a survivor’s story on the Sea Story.

Following the protocols in the IMO Casualty Investigation Code, the MAIB has formally registered the UK as a Substantially Interested State in the Egyptian safety investigations into these accidents.

From the evidence the MAIB has obtained so far, they write that “there is cause for serious concern about the safety of some of the Egyptian dive boats operating in the Red Sea.

“The Chief Inspector of Marine Accidents has written to the Egyptian Authority for Maritime Safety (EAMS) setting out his concerns and seeking full participation in the EAMS investigations. In the meantime, the MAIB is preparing a safety bulletin for publication setting out the areas of concern that individuals intending an afloat-based diving holiday in the region should take into account before booking.”

Follow our Red Sea dive stories here.

If you are a victim of a dive boat accident in the Red Sea reach out seastory@greenprophet.com

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Globe-trotters, divers, sailors, cyclists, pilots on solar airplanes –– those heading around the world like to capture their adventures so their loved ones can follow. That’s what a tourist did when they boarded the M/Y Sea Story on November 24, this year, a liveaboard diving adventure luxury yacht promising 3 dives a day. Egypt’s Red Sea is the most population destination in the world for divers because of its proximity to Europe –– only a 4-hour plane ride to Cairo, then a day bus trip to the seashore town of Marsa Alam.

There were 33 tourists onboard, all seasoned divers, expecting to go on challenging and adventurous dives into the Red Sea coral reefs, with the help of a team of 11, divers, cooks and a captain of the boat. For reasons that no official is yet saying the 3-story yacht listed 3 times and on its third, tipped into the sea and did not recover its balance. At that moment 23 people, including crew managed to jump from the capsized wreck into the sea, and most found life boats back to shore.

The story ends tragically when a day and a half later rescue divers finally went in. They heard knocking on the boat and with a beloved family member inside, one of the Egyptian rescue team insisted they go in. According to some accounts the Navy prevented the rescue divers from going into the boat. According to others the divers were afraid to go in the water because of the sharks. But they did go in but it took 36 hours since the boat started sinking.

After 36 hours from capsizing (varying accounts say an alarm was sent to another boat at 1:30am, others say the sinking happened at 2:30 or 3:30am on November 25) 5 people were rescued from inside their cabins. Those close to the wreck said they were farther out than they should be and saw a ship in the shipping lane passing in the distance.

After reaching out to the booking company (Dive Pro Liveaboard), local divers in the region, some associated with the company and who have local intel, the Navy and the local dive association, The Chamber of Diving and Water Sports, no one was willing to give the exact location when the boat first sent its distress signal. Rumors circulating suggest that the captain was the cook and that perhaps he or others in charge were inebriated (stoned), but since the “Authorities” in Egypt aren’t speaking to anyone, survivors and families of those who have lost their loved ones in the accident, are doing their own guess work.

We did have a diver “insider” reach out to us with the coordinates of the rescue, 36 hours after the boat listed and remained slightly above water. We spoke with a survivor’s daughter and he said his room’s porthole was above the water. The rescue boats following them did not give survivors trapped in Sea Story any indication they weren’t alone. No Navy ship blew its horn. In what could be a tragic story, if true, one anonymous source said the rescue crew followed the boat for 3 days after the 5 people and 4 bodies were pulled from the wreck on November 25. It is possible people were still inside alive.

We still don’t no where the boat first listed and why. We don’t know where the boat finally sank, although one source that can’t be named says it is in 1000 meters of water.

The family of the victim sent us their last Polarstar location, and you can see it here below. They say they were getting a signal as of December 2. This is the last transmission they’ve had. The location was sent at 14:50 November 25, many hours after the boat would leave the Port Ghalib. And it was transmitting until December 2, according to her in-laws that sent us this information. Does this give us any more clues about what happened when the Sea Story sunk?

If you want to follow the story more deeply, we have half a dozen articles that start here> Sea Story sinking.

If you have any more information related to this tragedy, send us a message seastory@greenprophet.com

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On November 25, a dive yacht by the name of Sea Story listed and capsized several km out into the Red Sea off the coast of Marsa Alam Egypt. It was carrying 44 people and 11 people are presumed to have died. This number includes the 4 bodies found on the shipwreck at this location.

Survivors and their families are telling their stories about loved ones rescued and those they cannot find. The series of articles can be found here. There are so many questions about the rescue operation and reasons for the accident being asked.

The GPS coordinates for the rescue can be accessed here on Google Earth.

The European survivors of this boating accident are being treated as suspects rather than survivors and the Egyptian Authorities have kept them in the dark about the fate of those dead and presumed dead because they are missing.  An anonymous tipster gave Green Prophet the location of the rescue.

We are still looking for the site where the boat listed on November, 25. And where the wreck drifted to and sunk some estimated 20 to 25 kilometers or more away from the rescue site.

Send us your survivor stories and an anonymous tip at seastory@greenprophet.com 

Update January 2025: we were given this map anonymously, indicating the location of the original accident before the boat drifted North East. This puts the accident close to two dive sites, Habili Radir Soraya and

The post Sea Story boat rescue site located in the Red Sea appeared first on Green Prophet.

On November 25, a Red Sea dive boat capsized, leaving 44 tourists and crew fending for their lives. We have a saga of stories you can follow here about the Sea Story incident, including interviews with survivors. Timothy, a diver reached out to us hoping to raise concerns he had while diving in Egypt with the same company that charted the ill-fated Sea Story, but he travelled just a week earlier.

“I am a certified PADI divemaster with over 600 worldwide dives. I am not a survivor of the sinking – I was on a different boat the Sea Pearl, operated by the same company, during the week immediately previous to the sinking,” says Timothy, using his first name only.

Like survivors of the Sea Story, Timothy says Dive Pro transferred him to another boat last minute: “This often happens for operational reasons – desire to have boats travel fully booked; mechanical or logistical issues with the boats; crew availability; weather and conditions, etc. I had been booked onto the Tillis but was moved to the Sea Pearl about 48 hours before the trip was due to begin.

“This wasn’t an issue for me, but many others were annoyed that they could not travel on their preferred boat, or that they had paid for an upper-deck cabin but were now on the lower deck,” he says.

What message do you have for other divers booking liveaboard trips anywhere in the world?

“Be very aware of safety concerns when researching a Red Sea live-aboard trip. Review your chosen boat’s safety provisions. Book (and insist upon receiving) an upper-deck cabin.

“Familiarise you and your buddy with your life jackets.”

What message do you have for divers whose intuition tells you the boat isn’t safe? 

“Trust your intuition. However there is little you can do other than take safety into your own hands.”

Will you dive in Egypt again and if yes, with who?

“Likely, but perhaps shore dives, and with a different company, which I will thoroughly research.”

How many diving boat accidents were there in 2024 in Egypt?

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Dive Pro Liveaboard has lost 2 boats this year. Another one caught fire in 2022. In November, Sea Story tipped and capsized in open water. Eleven tourists are presumed dead, plus a number of crew.

Dive Pro Liveaboard has lost 2 boats this year in the Red Sea. 12 tourists and a number of crew have died, yet the company is still taking bookings for Christmas

The Red Sea is a magical place. It’s in the mountains of Sinai where God first spoke with Moses and gave him the 10 commandments. The beautiful people, the food, the natural mix between sea and desert. The colors of purple, pinks, yellows, oranges, white and black. The coral reefs everywhere and diving in the Blue Hole is an adventure of a lifetime for many divers who do return again and again. Especially Europeans where Cairo is a 5 hour plane ride away.

But am Egyptian dive holiday went wrong for 33 tourists this past November when the second boat in the same fleet  owned by the dive company Dive Pro Liveaboard listed, capsized and sunk. The accident happened on November 25, a Monday, in the early hours of the morning, as early as 2:30am near the area of Marsa Alam about 20 km out into the Red Sea.

Location of the Sea Story tragedy on the Red Sea

The Egyptian Navy wasn’t called until a reported 5:30am and helicopters didn’t show up until about 10am or 11am, according to survivors. We first reported on the dive boat accident here right after it happened. Soon after, we were made aware that there were suspicious reports of the dive boat not suited to open seas because it had no keel and was refurbished with an extra floor making it top heavy (read here). Soon after a German diver reached out about a thesis a German student was working on documenting the hazards of Red Sea diving. He offered some solutions for fixing the growing concerns among dive boats and a dive boat checklist – you can get it here.

What we do know is that on Monday, 23 people out of 44 onboard, including crew and tourists, made their way to safety on rescue boats. The next day, some 36 hours later rescue crews pulled out 5 survivors, 4 tourists and one crew, a nephew of one of the rescue team. We have the story of one of the survivors, Michael Miles from Vaud, Switzerland, here, as told to us by his daughter.

In total there are 11 dead and/or missing from Germany, the UK, Poland and Egypt.

The dive operating company Dive Pro Liveaboard and the company that has facilitated the bookings of the trips have not responded to survivors requests for compensation or help. They have not responded to our requests to be interviewed. The Egyptian Navy’s emailed bounced. Dive Pro Liveaboard is based in Hurghada and based on its website is run by Ali Aref. They are still taking bookings for their remaining 2 boats.

“Crazy! Insanely bad management,” says a Reddit commenter. “They also ran a boat Sea Legend that caught fire in Feb where one German diver died. And in 2022, another of their boat also caught fire. How are they still allowed to operate? Makes you question the local systems and enforcement too.”

Both companies Dive Pro Liveaboard and the Dutch-based Liveaboard.com are continuing to book dive trips on risky boats despite the concerns. We have here an eyewitness who travelled on the Tillis, one of the boats being offered by Liveaboard.com currently on its Holland-based booking platform noting how they feared for their life on that boat. Yet only positive reviews are shown on the site.

Sea Story survivor Michael Miles told his daughter he booked on the Tillis (read here one tourists account of lack of safety standards on the boat) but was transferred to Sea Story. See screenshots from December 8 below that bookings are still being made for the dive boat company and if you read comments you will see that Liveaboard.com and Dive Pro Liveaboard in Egypt have a history of switching out boats. Why?

Liveaboard.com still carrying on booking holidays for the Dive Pro Liveaboard which lost 2 boats in the last year from catastrophic accidents that have killed 12 tourists and many crew.

Tillis booking liveaboard.com transferred to Sea Story boat on arrival. This was a common thing, as noted in the comments. Guest Michael Miles was switched from Tillis to Sea Story when he goat to the boat. Tillis went out on the trip but was not involved in the accident.

The fatal accident on November 25 has left dozens of survivors and the families of those who have died looking for answers and in the very least some financial compensation. Over the last 2 weeks, there are the questions we have collected, still unanswered. If you have any information about the Sea Story, answer in the comments below or email us seastory@greenprophet.com.

Open questions after the Sea Story dive boat tragedy

Where did the accident actually happen?

By the time the Navy arrived to the sinking boat several hours after it capsized, they cordoned off the area around the boat, and wouldn’t allow rescue crews from other dive companies in for another day, some 36 hours, on Tuesday. The reason is that there was a risk of a diver bubble entering an air pocket and changing the pressure in the boat. The whole boat could go down.

One source says the boat was in 12 to 15 meters of water, another said 1000 meters. What was it? In deep open water or closer to the shore? If you look at the maps of the Indian Ocean/Red Sea areas you don’t need to boat long to get into water reaching hundreds of meters of depth. Why did it take the Navy 36 hours to agree to let divers inside even though survivors could be heard knocking and whistling from the outside?

Eyewitness accounts put the boat as close to 20km to shore and as far as 80km. A shipping boat was seen passing by at 10am by the survivors curious to know the exact location of the wreck. Marsa Alam sea Story dive boat nautical maps by fishing-app.gpsnauticalcharts.com.

Sea Story travelled from Port Ghalib at Marsa Shouna around 9 to 10pm. They were supposed to arrive at Sataya Reef after 6 or 7 hours at sea early in the morning. Around 2:30 am the boat went down within minutes (as many as 10), but the parts of the bottom of the boat floated about the surface. This is information supplied by survivors interviewed by Green Prophet.

Sea Story’s approximate location in the Red Sea/Indian Ocean. One source estimates 80 km out, another 20 km out in the sea. Depths are around 600m. Why is it reported that the boat sunk in 12 to 15 meters? 

One survivor told Green Prophet that at 10:00 am a helicopter arrived at the wreck. Shortly after, he says (maybe one hour), the motor boats of the Masa Nakari, a dive center brought the survivors from the life rafts to the Polish liveaboard.

Why did it take the Navy so long to let rescue divers in?

Rescue divers reported hearing knocking sounds coming out of the boat, meaning there were people trapped inside after the initial rescue. From Monday there was knocking coming out of My Sea Story. Why did the Navy only let the private rescuers in on Tuesday?

Why did it take so long for the Navy to come? The boat started sinking around 2:30 am. The Navy showed up at around 10am or 11.

Why does the Navy have no dive guides? Or equipment?

Questions about the boat operator

Why did the Tillis and My Sea Story go out when there were warnings and advisors against going to sea?

Was the cook driving the boat?

Why was an inexperienced captain in charge of such a large vessel?

Where is the captain of the ship? Is he on the run? A Facebook eulogy by a friend suggested he killed himself; others say he was in jail. Maybe he is in hiding?

Why are people booking on one boat and getting transferred to another?

How are they still booking trips on Tillis?

Why is Liveaboard.com not refunding money to people afraid of the Dive Pro company in the Egypt who have booked trips on boats like Tillus, also unsafe remodeled boats?

Who is certifying an ancient dive boat as seaworthy?

Why was My Sea Story away from the dive site and why did they separate from Tillis, the sister boat on Sunday?

The Navy and the Egyptian Authorities

Why are there no images coming out from the Navy of the boat in the water?

Where is the wreck now?

Why are they hiding the original location of the wreck?

Why has the public not been told if the boat finally sank?

Why were rescued passengers denied their passports to go home unless they signed a waver?

One diver reported a hole in the boat? Was there a hole in the boat?

Why didn’t the marines try to prop up the boat from sinking? Use floatation equipment?

Where is the crew? Why aren’t they allowed to talk with the media?

Why are the actual divers who went into the Sea Story and saved lives, not being celebrated? Their contribution being told?

Who will compensate tourists and the crew who lost their lives?

Some speculate that the Navy has towed the boat from the site where the boat overturned into shore, close to a reef. Why?

The rescue team that went in rescued 5 people. They found 4 bodies. There were no other bodies on the boat. Were there people still alive in their cabins? According to this rescue story (we interviewed the daughter) the rescue crew could not get into all the cabins. Did they give up on them? Were the risks too great?

There is a debate on whether the boat was in 12-15 meters or in 1000 meters of water. This fact could have changed rescue strategies. Some sources say the boat was close to shore near a reef and eventually sunk in 12 to 15 meters of water. Other say 20 to 80km out in the open water, at about 1000 m depth and the boat was towed back to shore and sunk near a reef by the Navy.

December 10, update: We attempted to book a dive trip on the Tillis through Dive Pro directly. The reply from a rep named Zozo was “Which week, which route, here in Egypt or in KSA?”

If you have anything to contribute to this evolving story, send us an email: seastory@greenprophet.com

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As more time passes since the Egyptian dive yacht sunk on November 25 off the coast of Egypt, survivors are asking questions of how so many things could have gone wrong. From lack of batteries in the life vests, to leaking life rafts, to an unresponsive Navy. Why did it take more than 36 hours for those that couldn’t escape the wreck to be rescued? Why was the rescue done by a private crew and not the Navy? And were their sounds of distress being heard for 36 hours before the rescue crew went in?

A modern motorized yacht called My Sea Story was underway in the Red Sea on November 25 with 44 people on board – including 33 tourists – when an accident occurred. The My Sea Story listed back and forth several times and then started sinking, with a portion of it staying afloat in the water. Twenty three jumped off the boat in 2 life rafts, but many people remained inside the boat unable to escape including Michael Miles, 70, from Vaud, Switzerland.

Related: did the Egyptian dive boat yacht sink because it wasn’t suited for open water? 

We spoke with his daughter about the rescue, which seemed like a miracle. But as time goes on survivors are doubting the Egyptian authorities, and the Navy which took credit for the rescue. Local divers have also sent us photos and updates that the people listed on the rescue team are not correct. Are the Egyptian authorities trying to hide something?

As of today, four fatalities are confirmed, seven people are still missing, 33 people have been rescued. The families of loved ones want answers.

Michael Miles, pictured below, was stuck in the boat for 36 hours, with his cabin mate, believing they would die. He left a goodbye message to his wife and daughter on his camera should he not survive. There was a pocket of air from which he could breath but time was running out.

According to several sources the boat started sinking between 2:30 and 3:30 am, and it took less than 10 minutes, but the Navy didn’t officially arrive until 5:30 am. It was dark and life saving equipment wasn’t functioning because nothing had batteries.

A number of our sources suggest the Navy had no interest in rescuing those still trapped inside. It is rumored that the Navy does not have a dive crew or the equipment to keep the capsized boat afloat.

Melvina Miles, the daughter of Michael told Green Prophet: “My father even put a trouser on the pothole to signal they were there and alive.

“He said also that there were no batteries in their life jackets so that their torches and trackers couldn’t work.

“They were also regularly blowing the whistles of their life jackets to signal their presence.”

According to Egyptians at the rescue site – believed to be an estimated 20km into the Red Sea from the Egyptian coast – knocking sounds could be heard from the boat but that the Navy wouldn’t let them access the boat for a rescue mission.

One reason a European dive operator gave us, was that it might be too dangerous in case an air pocket would change the balance in the boat bringing them all down with it.

Related: sinking dive boat spurs safety checklist for dive boat operators

Despite the risks, a number of divers went in, and brought out 5 people alive, and 4 bodies of crew and tourists.

“My father doesn’t understand why they took so long to search the boat for the missing people and also believes the only reason someone came to rescue them is because an Egyptian divemaster had his nephew missing and he managed the pressure the army to be able to search the boat for him,” says Michael’s daughter Melvina.

“The boat didn’t sink, it floated at the surface. My father had a window but it was too small to get out from and it was high above him. He was able to open it to get some air to it, so it was definitely outside the water. The thing is that in order to get out of the boat, they had to dive down the boat and into the corridors. That was maybe 10 meters. His cabin what as the bottom of the boat but as it got overturned he ended on the top at the surface

“My father is very grateful to be alive. We know there a lot of shady things with the Egyptian authorities but it would be too much energy for a probably disappointing result to try to sue them,” she says.

“He told me that captain of the boat was quite young and didn’t seem very experienced. He was not taking the waves in the correct way and before especially not when it got to the big waves. I believe it was one of the biggest reasons for the boat to sink. If a boat isn’t positioned correctly in the waves it is not good.”

Melvina noted that the company her dad booked the 5-day tour through Liveaboard.com, and they did not respond to her family’s dire situation when her dad was among those stuck inside the boat. No phone calls, nothing.

“Liveaboard never contacted my father to know how he was recovering. They don’t answer our phone calls either,” she says.

Related: dive boat sinks with 44 onboard 

She is connected to a survivor’s group and is hoping to find justice in some way for what happened to her father and to the way the authorities treated her when she and her mother arrived to Egypt to comfort her father. “When I arrived in Egypt I called the hospital to speak to my father. The first thing they said was, you are the Swiss case, your father’s credit card credit is not high enough, you need to make a Bank transfer and if not we won’t let him out.”

“I was so shocked at this, and then really angry. When my dad arrived in Marsa Alam after being rescued, the officials came to make videos with survivors and the media but after this he got no help from the Egyptian authorities of any kind. Luckily my mother was already in Egypt. The accident was on Monday and Melvina arrived on Wednesday.

“What makes me the most angry is that my father almost died because they didn’t do what they could to save him and probably some the missing people could have been saved,” says Melvina.

“In some recent articles they say 6 deaths and 5 people missing which makes me believe they found more bodies but don’t want to make it official.”

Items that should not have have been out of place during an accident, hampered rescue efforts and maybe prevented more people from being rescued as they might have been trapped in their cabins.

“My father said that when the diver came to rescue him, the door of his cabin was blocked because of the debris and he had to help to open it. Apparently some other cabins doors were also blocked so they couldn’t search them.”

When the rescue team came they did not bring extra masks and shared regulators. It was deemed a risky operation with reports of sharks circling around the cadavers.

Melvina’s dad never encountered sharks: “He couldn’t see outside, the boat window was too high. He had to climb to open it to get some air inside because the water had some fuel from the boat. It was complicated and he got injured doing it.”

Survivors and the families of those dead and missing are asking: why did the Navy not do more to rescue the tourists? Did they neglect and even prevent rescue divers from going in? Where are the reports and investigation? Why was a dive boat most likely refurbished and not seaworthy out in the water against calls from the authorities that the sea was too rough? Who is going to compensate them for loss of personal effects and loss of life? How has the company that owns My Sea Story had 2 boats go down in the last 2 years and still operating?

Given that tourism industry is worth billions in Egypt and it’s the only lifeline to employment for millions, it’s probably the interest for Egyptian officials to brush this latest tragedy under the rug. Soon it will be Christmas season. One source who dove with the company in the past said he thinks that “Egyptians prefer missing tourists over dead bodies. Missing, for the Egyptian Authorities is a happier ending and it can mean anything, especially for insurance companies. Maybe they swam to the nearby Socotra Island? Or they have taken off together for a secret new life sipping cocktails in the Caribbean?”

Since the Gaza attack on Israel in 2023 tourism to nearby Sinai, Egypt has been deeply affected. Some resorts at a standstill. With thousands of people cancelling their holidays to the Red Sea region, considered one of the best diving spots in the world some parties may have an interest that the show go on.

Egypt dive boat sank because it wasn’t built for open water, sources claim

The post Trapped in a dive boat for 36 hours, survivor’s daughter raises red flags over rescue appeared first on Green Prophet.

Carlton Queen Dive boat sinks in Egypt in 2023

Diving is a beautiful hobby and pastime. It’s a sport that connects you with nature, new habitats and people, and gives you an opportunity to learn about marine life and the importance of saving the marine habitat, like kelp forests. But diving is a dangerous sport –– not only because you can be going 100 feet underwater kept alive by a tank but because there are hazards you can’t control connected to the safety of the dive ship you might choose. There is no place in the world where so many dive ships sink as in Egypt.

The busy location on the Red Sea is a favorite because of the location close to Europe, the charm of the Egyptian people, the gorgeous Red Sea and area around Sinai and the low cost. Low wages paid to divemasters and crew means a good price for customers, but it does not bode well necessarily for safety considerations. We interview a survivor’s family here.

A recent disaster on the Red Sea

A 44-person live aboard ship sunk off the Red Sea coast last week. Four people have died and seven people are still unaccounted for. We wrote about the possible reasons for the accident. One past customer of the company, a diver, has said that the boat My Sea Story wasn’t suited for open water areas. And that safety concerns were not in place when she vacationed with the company a few years ago. We interviewed a survivor’s family here and the re

Diver and researcher Jan-Philipp Lauer from Germany reached out to Green Prophet and said the ”that stability issues may have contributed to the sinking of the Sea Story. This should be further investigated.”

He tells Green Prophet: “Following last year’s Carlton Queen accident, I worked with Taucher.Net to shed light on why these accidents keep happening.”

Taucher.Net is a Scuba diving platform.

Live aboard in Sharm el Sheikh Egypt

“Kiel University of Applied Sciences worked with us and Justus Schiszler wrote his bachelor thesis about diving liveaboard vessel safety (download it here). He also performed stability calculations on Carlton Queen based on photos.

“The calculations based on these photos showed that Carlton Queen’s stability was likely significantly lower than what would be considered adequate for a seagoing vessel. The same is, unfortunately, true for many diving liveaboards. There are no stability calculations for many of them.”

David Taylor, from Treswell in Nottinghamshire, thought he and his son Christian thought they were going to die when they realised they were trapped below deck on the Carlton Queen diving boat last year. “I started to lose the plot. I really was panicking we were going to die. There was no way to get out,” he told British media.

Make sure your liveaboard knows this safety audit checklist

An inspection checklist before you dive can be found here.

The checklist is intended for maritime surveyors as many requirements are too technical for non-experts. It constitutes a stopgap measure since the same level of safety cannot be reached if a vessel is not built to appropriate classification society standards. For example, vessels with wooden hulls are not permissible under SOLAS.

“Since the bachelor thesis was completed,” Lauer adds, “we made significant progress with an independent audit program for diving liveaboards. A first version of an audit checklist is available on my website.

In summary, the thesis found:

• 1 fatality every 37.8 accidents in shipping, for example cruise ships and container ships, which must all be SOLAS-compliant.
• 1.2 or 2 fatalities per accident in diving liveaboard vessels (depending on the exclusion/inclusion of the Conception accident)

This difference, Lauer notes on his website, “in the level of safety offered by shipping versus diving liveaboards is alarming.”

Lauer notes on his website that since the sinking of the Titanic, strict regulations were put in place to ensure another accident wouldn’t lead to catastrophic loss of life like we saw back then. Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) was born.

SOLAS is an international maritime treaty designed to establish minimum safety standards for ship construction, equipment, and operation of ships and large boats. SOLAS is currently only mandatory for commercial vessels bigger than 500 gross tons or commercial vessels on international voyages (with some more exceptions). Smaller vessels can comply with SOLAS voluntarily. However, liveaboard vessels are generally smaller than 500 gross tons and do not engage in international voyages and thus SOLAS is not mandatory for them. Only national regulations apply to them.

None of the vessels involved in recent Red Sea and South Asian dive boat accidents were SOLAS certified.

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“Egyptians involved are so afraid to go to jail or even afraid of death if they speak out in public.”

Last week, international headlines were made as divers and dive operators died following after a live aboard dive boat flipped over and sank off the coast of Egypt near a popular dive site on the Red Sea. Some 44 people were aboard, 4 are known to have died, and 7 remain unaccounted for. As of December 8 these people were not found, so we assume there are now 11 people dead from the disaster. Both crew and tourists. Read a survivor’s story here and the remarkable realization that the Navy knew they were alive but did not come to the rescue.

Diver Emad Omran from Egypt reached out to Green Prophet and said that the boat was built too high for its size, and was “easily controlled by the wind” making it an easy target when the sea gets rough: “It wasn’t built for rough, hard seas,” he says.

The boat reportedly sunk near Sha’ab Sataya (also known as Dolphin Reef), off the coast of Marsa Alam, Egypt, on November 25.

“Actually it was built for easy kite surf live-aboard in a sheltered island environment,” he tells Green Prophet. Omran says that the owners of the boat “have no idea about diving or safety standards or even tourism creating a negative environment for dive operators in Egypt.”

The company who operated Sea Story is called Dive Pro Liveaboards, and the “company must stop operating in the Red Sea,” says Omran.

Dive Pro Liveaboards did not answer our request for comments. They also own the boat Sea Legend that caught fire in February, killing one woman.

Linda Korres, familiar with the dive company and friends with member of the crew who died last Monday, eulogizes her diver and friend Aladin. He was credited for rescuing people.

She said she felt something was wrong with this company when she went diving with them three years ago, on the boat Tillis.

“We truly hope that the irresponsible owner of the ship Dive Pro Liveaboards, who already lost one of his four ships, the Sea Legend this year 22nd February, due to a fire and explosion, will be finally called responsible together with all the officials who looked away and still do for so many companies and ships in the Red Sea,” Korres added.

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