Fire on safari boat Suzana in Egypt (Red Sea Aggressor)

[chillyinCanada]

The statement from Wayne Brown sounds to me like damage control, carefully redacted by the sales & marketing department.

The investigation will take its course, with or without Scubaboard. But the power of Scubaboard (and the internet) is that everybody has a voice, as seen with several witness accounts. Makes it so much harder to cover up mistakes.

Twice now, the absence of a nightwatch has resulted in the loss of life. Not a single word about that from Wayne Brown.
Nobody is perfect, so how difficult is it to say: we f#cked up and people died because of it.

It's really quite difficult for a corporation to say that.

@Egypt66, you have no idea how disrespectful your comments are. My recommendation to you is to be quiet now.

 

[John Bantin]

Yeah right!

Ahmed Fadel is the General Manager for Red Sea Aggressor.

 

[Late in Life Diver]

10 days later and Aggressor website continues to have a vague statement about an “incident” with a loss of life, still no mention that the boat caught fire, a passenger was killed in the fire, the remaining passengers and crew had to jump overboard to save their lives, and the Red Sea Aggressor sank.

These are all FACTS, Mr Brown. Instead they remain in damage control, hoping people will continue book on their website by omitting these details.

 

[SoFlaDiver954]

@Egypt66, you have no idea how disrespectful your comments are. My recommendation to you is to be quiet now.

While I don't agree with their comments either, your comment comes off poorly, as well. I would expect better, especially from staff.

Emotions can run hot in the wake of tragedies but let's try to take the high road...

 

[nm7sp]

The statement from Wayne Brown sounds to me like damage control, carefully redacted by the sales & marketing department.

The investigation will take its course, with or without Scubaboard. But the power of Scubaboard (and the internet) is that everybody has a voice, as seen with several witness accounts. Makes it so much harder to cover up mistakes.

Twice now, the absence of a nightwatch has resulted in the loss of life. Not a single word about that from Wayne Brown.
Nobody is perfect, so how difficult is it to say: we f#cked up and people died because of it.

What is pertinent is that the NTSB took the quite extraordinary step of, after the Conception fire, releasing an Interim report based on very little investigation that basically said,

There was a fire, the whole crew was asleep, lots of people died.

I think that this was a clear statement that while the regulations will be a while in coming, that they thought it would be *extremely* necessary for the entire industry to understand their simple message and act on it.

 

[DavidFL]

This is a quote from your post "Ahmed, the owner/rep was surprisingly allowed in all of our initial Egyptian"

This another quote from your post "At one point, Red Sea Aggressor owner David Home even physically attacked and hurt me "

As you see in a kaos facts get distorted.

You are apparently saying that because the post said that Ahmed was the owner/rep, and later said that David Home was the owner, is evidence of "kaos facts get distorted".

I did not see any discrepancy in that post, and those and the other facts in the post you have described as distorted were very helpful to me in trying to understand and comprehend this tragedy.

 

[Dan]

It is not uncommon that a liveaboard is owned by more than one person too.

 

[HalcyonDaze]

What is pertinent is that the NTSB took the quite extraordinary step of, after the Conception fire, releasing an Interim report based on very little investigation that basically said,

There was a fire, the whole crew was asleep, lots of people died.

I think that this was a clear statement that while the regulations will be a while in coming, that they thought it would be *extremely* necessary for the entire industry to understand their simple message and act on it.

A week after the Conception fire I took a multi-stage trip to get to Tahiti and back; maybe I was just more aware of it because of the speculation about battery fires (and having to leave my cell phone behind prior to the first flight because of a swollen battery), but I noted that at every luggage check-in and at U.S. Customs coming into LAX I got quizzed about having batteries in my checked luggage (moreso than usual). I had the feeling that wasn't a coincidence.

 

[Schwob]

...“Also, in regards to a passenger’s comments that he did not hear a smoke detector – and some research showing smoke detectors having a history of testing okay with the test button but not activating with actual smoke – we will start requiring the testing of our smoke detectors with cans of fake smoke to ensure proper operation. ....“

Whatever else I may think, ... and I do...,
the above snippet of the more recent statement of Wayne Brown I do like.

 

[Anthias]

For Reef Hound: I'm not sure if the cabins had doors that locked or not. Probably do usually, but in this situation, probably not. But how is that relevant to this situation, really? Everyone except one person made it out that hatch and no mention was made of a locked door by anyone.

This entire chain of events, the Conception and the Red Sea Aggressor is incredibly stressful for all of us. We all want to know what happened and many people want someone to blame. But without information, facts, and qualified research, no one truly knows or can say. It is all guesses.

Outofofficebrb, would you post the link again? I'd like to see if myself.

My group was in Egypt for a full month. One thing I can confirm from the statement that Wayne Brown made is that making any travel arrangements in Egypt is difficult. Security to protect tourists is very, very tight and all arrangements I had to make took months to make for my group. Nothing moves quickly. It is immensely frustrating, but that is what it is in Egypt.

Plus, unlike any other place I've been, in Egypt, if your bags don't make your flight, or your flight is delayed and you can't get to the boat before it leaves, you are out of luck. No boats are allowed to go out to a dive boat for any reason. They can't bring you if you're late, or your bags. I'd been told this, but had to confirm it, because one of my group members was stuck in Florida with the hurricane. So I completely believe that the poor people from the boat were stuck in Port Gahlib for longer than was good and there was nothing the Aggressor staff could do about it.

For those that have never been to Port Ghalib, it is an artificial (though fun) tourist town, built for European tourists. Compared to everywhere else we went, everything was so much more expensive. On the flip side, the Egyptian people are not rich and wages are very low. The average wage per quarter is 2,000 Egyptian pounds, or $126 per quarter. That is $42 a month. And when this hit, Nov. 1, it is the Egyptian weekend and all banks are closed until Sunday, which would have been Nov. 3. The admittedly small amount initially given all the passengers could well have been all the small staff there in Port Ghalib (no one lives there with Aggressor) could scrape up between all of them emptying their accounts via ATMs.

Anyway, going back to the Aggressor statement, I want to confirm again that this is exactly what we experienced when we boarded the boat only 6 days after the Conception fire. They had told us they had run through all these checks after hearing about the Conception fire. It is interesting he mentions that some fire alarms may test well, but not go activate with smoke. That's scary! I wonder where their smoke alarms are manufactured? I'm betting it isn't US or even European.

There is so much for all of us to learn about these tragedies.