Captain of the tour boat capsized with Korean tourists on board not guilty
Change language:
Hungarian police said that experts have concluded that the captain of a sightseeing boat that collided on the Danube River with a much larger cruise ship this spring was not responsible for the deadly crash that killed 28 people, including himself.
As we reported before, the small Hableany (Mermaid) tour boat collided with the Viking Sigyn river cruise ship on May 29 near the Hungarian Parliament in Budapest. Everybody except the crew members were South Korean tourists. Seven of them survived, but the remains of one missing female South Korean tourist has not yet been recovered.
Colonel Adrian Pal from the Budapest Police reported the results of the recently-closed investigation, which contained 11,000 pages of documentation and over 4,200 photos. Authorities have not released the name of the deceased captain of the Mermaid – cbsnews.com said.
Pal also denied media reports that the Ukrainian captain of the Viking Sigyn, identified only as Yuriy C.,
had been drinking or was not at his post
when the collision happened on a rainy spring night, shortly after 9 p.m.
“No signs of alcohol or other mind-altering drugs were found“, Pal said and added that the captain was on the bridge at the time of the accident, and there are clear sound recordings proving it.
Yuriy C., the only suspect so far in the case, is under pre-trial arrest until November 30 at the latest. He is suspected of endangering water transport resulting in a fatal mass catastrophe and of failing to offer aid at the time of the crash.