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A female Indonesian divemaster is missing after a dive boat carrying 30 people capsized and sank in Komodo National Park on Tuesday, 13 October.
The vessel, identified as KM Feronia in local reports, was carrying 25 passengers – 21 of whom were reportedly foreign tourists – and five members of crew when she sank in waters near Tatawa Besar, East Nusa Tenggara.
Twenty-nine people were rescued in the aftermath of the sinking, with three of the tourists having reportedly sustained minor injuries during the incident.
A local divemaster, identified as Indonesian native Veronica Beatrix Jessica, 23, from Jakarta, has not been found, and is thought to have been taken down with the sinking dive boat.
According to a statement by Leonardo Marpaung, head of the Manggarai Barat Marine Police Unit, witness statements allege that Jessica was inside the boat’s toilet when the ship overturned.
‘The victim was in the toilet with the door locked from the inside,’ said Marpaung. ‘When the ship suddenly capsized to the left, the victim had no time to escape and sank along with the hull.’
According to local reports, KM Feronia, a wooden phinisi-style vessel, left Labuan Bajo marina at around 8.00 am on Tuesday for a trip into Komodo National Park, which included a dive at the popular dive site Manta Point.
Local police reports say the incident occurred at around 2.30pm during the return journey to Labuan Bajo, when the boat approached an area of powerful swirling currents near Tatawa Besar.
The captain reportedly reduced his speed but lost control of the vessel, which turned and listed sharply to port before capsizing.
The captain said that he had enough time to deploy the liferaft before the boat sank, but only became aware that Jessica was missing after the crew had conducted a headcount of the survivors.
‘I focused on the guests. I opened the liferaft, the guests got in, and that was it,’ he told Indonesian reporters. ‘It was only after we counted the guests with the guide that I realised someone was still on board.’
A joint search and rescue mission coordinated by the Maumere Search and Rescue Agency was launched on Tuesday afternoon, including personnel and boats from the nearby Labuan Bajo Naval Base, West Manggarai Search and Rescue and the Indonesian Water Police.
Poor conditions brought the search to a halt on Tuesday evening, but operations resumed early on Wednesday morning with 63 people involved, including divers from the Komodo Professional Divers Association (P3KOM) and four of Jessica’s friends.
Was the boat’s design to blame?
Stephanus Risdiyanto, head of the Labuan Bajo Harbour and Port Authority, told reporters that Feronia was built at the shipyard in Bira, South Sulawesi, and had been operating for around two months before sinking.
She held a valid seaworthiness certificate, but the police have already opened an investigation into the sinking, and are examining whether the vessel’s design may have contributed to its capsizing.
Marpaung said that although conditions were relatively calm at the surface, the waters around Tatawa Besar were known for exceptionally strong currents.
Questions would also be asked as to whether or not the captain adequately handled the boat when struck by the current.
‘Preliminary police analysis indicates that the weather at the time of the incident was relatively calm, with no high waves,’ he said. ‘However, the waters of Tatawa Besar are characterised by very strong eddies.
‘The KM Feronia has a relatively short and narrow hull, but it is supported by a fairly high cabin structure,’ Marpaung added. ‘This makes the ship very unstable when hit by strong currents.’
‘The police are not ruling out the possibility of negligence or human error on the part of the captain who failed to take into account the stability of the ship’s construction when cutting through or crossing the eddy.’
The cause of the sinking remains under investigation, however as of the time of writing (around 7pm Komodo time on Wednesday, 14 October), Jessica had not been found.
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