Boat used in fatal Channel bid 'wholly unsuitable'

At least eight people are believed to have died during the December 2022 crossing

An inflatable boat which partially sank in the English Channel leading to the loss of at least eight lives was "wholly unsuitable and ill-equipped for the crossing attempt”, a report has found.

The Maritime Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) said the boat was "poorly constructed, uncertified and unregulated" and that more lives would have been lost had it not been for the arrival of a passing vessel.

The Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre at Dover was informed in the early hours of 14 December, 2022, that an inflatable boat carrying migrants from France to the UK was potentially in distress.

The pilot of the dinghy, Ibrahima Bah - a Senegalese national thought to be about 20-years-old - was sentenced in February to nine years in jail for manslaughter over the deaths.

The MAIB report says that about three-and-a-half hours into the crossing, some of those on board the small boat heard a "pop or bang" and it started to flood rapidly from under the floorboards.

A tear in fabric of the boat. possibly caused by the weight of the numbers of people sitting on the floor of it, led to a loss of structural integrity, it said.

An estimated 47 migrants entered the water, the report published on Thursday said. Some were able to hold onto the side.

A British fishing vessel, Arcturus, came across the sinking boat and tried to rescue the passengers, with help from the RNLI, air ambulance and UK Border Force.

Ibrahima Bah is currently being detained in a Young Offenders Institution

MAIB said "more lives would have been lost" if it was not for the Arcturus.

A total of 39 migrants survived the incident and were recovered to the UK.

Four bodies were recovered, while a further four were seen sinking below the water and were never recovered, the MAIB said.

The report also details how icing conditions prevented planned coastguard surveillance flights from taking off on the day of the incident, while there was a "delay" before a rescue helicopter was sent out.

'Wholly unsafe'

It also notes that the Maritime Coastguard Agency has since opened a telephone priority helpline for Utopia 56, a French asylum seeker charity, to use when reporting small boat incidents. The group tried to raise the alarm during this incident using email.

Sentencing Bah at Canterbury Crown Court, the judge Mr Justice Johnson said primary responsibility for the tragedy lay with people smugglers who had procured a "wholly unsafe and unsatisfactory" vessel.

Following an investigation into a previous small boat incident, in which 27 lives were lost in 2021, and "actions already taken", the MAIB said it would make no further recommendations off the back of its report.