Red Sea boat diving survivors say they were ‘pressured into signing documents’

Survivors of a deadly dive boat that sank in the Red Sea say they were forced to sign official witness statements in Arabic – which they could not understand and were translated from English by a boat company official.

They say the man also tried to get them to sign waivers stating they were not accusing anyone of a “criminal offense.”

The 11 survivors who spoke to the BBC also accused Egyptian authorities of trying to cover up what happened, saying investigators were determined to pin the blame on a huge wave.

The Sea Story was carrying 46 people when it sank in the early hours of November 25 last year – four bodies have been recovered and seven people are still missing, including two British divers.

Neither the Egyptian government nor the boat operators – Hurghada-based Dive Pro Liveaboard – responded to our questions.

on tuesday The BBC uncovered numerous allegations from survivors about safety lapses on board the vessel. A leading oceanographer who analyzed the weather data also said it was unlikely that a huge wave had hit the ship.

Hours after being brought ashore, survivors say they were subjected to what one described as “interrogation,” some from their hospital beds, by people they said were judges.

Those who did not require hospital treatment were interviewed at a nearby resort, said other survivors who reported the same feelings of pressure.

“We were told we couldn’t leave the room until they had taken everyone’s evidence,” said Sarah Martin, an NHS doctor from Lancashire.

The judges were part of an Egyptian investigation into the causes of the sinking – although survivors say it is unclear who exactly directed it.

Survivors say having their initial statements translated into Arabic by an employee of the company that owns Sea Story is a clear conflict of interest.

Spanish diver Hisora ​​Gonzalez said the man initially did not identify himself as an employee. “He just said, ‘You have to tell me what happened and then you have to sign this piece of paper.’

Only later, say several people we spoke to, did the man tell them he worked for Dive Pro Liveaboard.

Survivors say that after being translated by the man, their statements were given to investigators – something that shocked Lisa Wolfe. “A normal judge cannot accept a translation from someone who is clearly fully involved in the process.”

One survivor, who is a Norwegian police investigator, said she had “no idea” what the four Arabic pages returned to her actually said. “They could write anything. I don’t know what I signed,” Freudis Adamson explained. Under her signature she writes that she wrote that she was unable to read the documents.

“We were in such shock and we just wanted to go home,” Hisora ​​said.

Representatives of the boat operators, Dive Pro Liveaboard, also repeatedly tried to get people to sign waivers — survivors say — that would have them agree with the statement: “I am not accusing anyone of any criminal wrongdoing.”

Justin Hodges, an American diver who was also rescued, told us that the “discharge document”, written in English, was handed to him while he was testifying.

He said he thought the person he was talking to was “official” but at that point he learned he worked for the company.

“He slid into the authorities,” Justin says. “The fact that he tried to get us to release the liability at that point was crazy to me.

At least some of the people we spoke to did not sign the document.

Everyone we spoke to said they had not been allowed to keep copies of their statements, but the BBC was told some people had managed to translate the documents with their phones. Many of them told us that key, incriminating details they had relayed orally were left out of the documents.

“Everything about the condition of the life rafts and the safety issues of the boat disappeared,” says Lisa.

Sara and Hisora ​​report the same experience. “They just put whatever they wanted,” Hisora ​​says.

Survivors also say the authorities seemed determined to blame the tragedy on a giant wave from the start.

That’s despite many of those rescued saying the waves weren’t too big to stop them from swimming. A leading oceanographer told the BBC that weather data from the nearest airport at the time strongly supported the survivors’ recollections.

Hisora ​​asked if she could possibly see a copy of the investigators’ final report, but said she was told she didn’t need to. “(It’s like) they already knew it was a wave,” she says.

When asked again, Hisora ​​said “the only one responsible for this is the sea”. She believes authorities have already made up their minds before the investigation even began.

Hisora’s concerns are shared by Sarah, who says the judges were also “very keen” on survivors not blaming anyone for the incident.

Multiple survivors say they were told that if they wanted to hold someone accountable, they had to name a specific and specific crime they were accused of.

“Just because I couldn’t name the person and the crime didn’t mean someone wasn’t guilty,” Sarah says.

A final attempt by Dive Pro Liveaboard to get survivors to sign waivers was made when a group tried to leave for Cairo, Justin says.

After losing their passports at sea, he says the group was told by a company representative that the documents presented to them were clearance documents to pass through checkpoints.

“But then I get to the bottom of it and the last sentence is the same disclaimer” — a repeat of what he says he was asked to sign when he testified.

Justin says he went to warn the others and when he returned to the person he believed was trying to trick him, the documents had “magically disappeared” and been replaced with more official documents.

“My blood was boiling,” he says.

The BBC has not seen the waiver documents or copies of them.

Family and friends of the two missing Britons, Jenny Cawson and Tarigh Sinada, from Devon, say they have consistently received partial and inaccurate news from the Egyptian government.

For example, after the disaster, they say they were told that the boat had not been found – despite the fact that they saw on television survivors of the shipwreck being washed ashore. They are calling for an open investigation.

“It seems the Egyptian authorities are doing everything they can to sweep this under the carpet,” says one friend, Andy Williamson. “They want to protect their tourism industry.”

In March, a fire on another Dive Pro Liveaboard boat – the Sea Legend – killed a German tourist.

Last year, the independent consultancy Maritime Survey International produced a report on the safety of diving boats in the Red Sea. It inspected eight vessels, although it did not include any operated by Dive Pro Liveaboard, and found that none had a “scheduled maintenance system, safety management system or stability books”, a key document to avoid capsizing.

It also found that design standards were “poor, with all vessels lacking watertight bulkheads, doors and hatches”.

It concluded that no vessel was safe and Egypt’s dive boat industry was “largely unregulated in its trade”.