Hungary Detains Cruise Ship Captain Involved In Deadly Collision

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Hungary’s police said Monday they had detained the captain of a Swiss-based cruise ship who was allegedly involved in a collision with a small motor boat on the Danube River that killed two people and left five others missing.

The accident late on Saturday came at a time of broader concerns about increased tourism shipping in the Danube River, Europe’s main waterway.

The accident was reported Saturday night after a 35-year-old man was found with a bleeding head wound near a main road by the river near Verőce, 55 kilometers (34 miles) north of the capital Budapest, investigators said.

The body of a man was reportedly recovered downstream south of Verőce
while a woman’s body was discovered further downstream near a bridge on the northern outskirts of Budapest.

Officials said that nearby police also recovered the damaged motorboat.

Hungarian police said the cruise ship captain was a Czech national. They had interviewed and detained him on suspicion of multiple offenses, including “failing to stop and provide help after an accident.”

DOZENS QUESTIONED

“Based on the suspicion of police, the captain did not alert his crew after the accident, did not follow provisions of the rescue protocol, and took no action whatsoever to save the persons afflicted,” police said in published remarks.

Police questioned 25 people as witnesses, including the cruise ship’s crew, tourists on board, and others, officials said.

A search continued on Monday for the five missing people, all of whom were in the motor boat, including an 18-year-old woman and a 39-year-old man, according to authorities involved in the operation.

On Sunday, reporters saw the cruise ship Heidelberg moored in the northern Danube river town of Komarom, upstream from the collision site, with significant scratches visible on the bow.

A group of Chinese tourists disembarked on Sunday afternoon.

One of them told media he had not been aware of any accident at the time and there were no injuries reported on board the cruise ship.

BOATING DESTINATION

The Danube at Verőce, where the accident happened, is roughly 460 meters (0.3 miles) wide and is in the center of the Danube Bend area, a popular recreational and boating destination.

It is on a route often used by cruise vessels between Budapest and the Austrian capital, Vienna, some 230 kilometers (143 miles) away.

The deadly accident comes five years after at least 27 people were killed in Budapest when a river cruise boat collided with a smaller tourist vessel, sinking it in seconds.

The tourist boat Hableany, carrying 35 people who were mostly South Korean tourists, was overtaken from behind by the much larger cruise boat, Viking Sigyn, beneath Budapest’s Margit Bridge in May 2019.

Nearby, a memorial was unveiled in honor of the victims of Hungary’s worst Danube River disaster since World War II.

Latest Worthy News