Death on the Danube

Mrs F said it's being reported the larger boat switched on its lights, didn't see anything, didn't stop and continued on.   

The smaller boat was for people having a party of some kind.  The injured person managed to swim ashore but others died.

Sounds like the larger ship ran down the smaller one.   Maybe it was dark, no lights and the larger ship couldn't see the smaller one.  I guess we'll find out what happened eventually.

Hungarian public television station M1 reported that the cruise boat, Heidelberg, is a 109-meter (357-foot) Swiss craft that can accommodate 110 people. No passengers on that boat sustained injuries, M1 said.

The Danube at Veroce is roughly 1,500 feet (460 meters) wide and is in the center of an area called the Danube Bend where the river makes a sweeping, nearly 90-degree turn to the south. The area is a popular recreational and boating destination and is on a route often used by cruise boats between Budapest and the Austrian capital, Vienna, some 140 miles (230 kilometers) upriver.

Police on Sunday said they have initiated criminal proceedings against an unknown perpetrator on suspicion of endangering water transport and causing the death of several people.

There's a description of the suspect vessel - MS Heidelberg here.

From what I heard these deceased people were on a party boat, going from one party to another along the Danube.

Do not want to blame the victims but it is possible they were drinking a bit much and got too wild on the water.

Sad in any case.

I do not know maritime rules but believe the larger boats have the right of way.

I might be wrong but perhaps they thought they could out distance the larger boat and cut themselves off.

See it almost everyday here on the roads. People cutting other off, squeezing in and not staying in their lanes. My husband is a defensive driver and gives them a break but not everyone is that way. They will not learn until they experience a crash.

May they RIP.

The soul survivor must be feeling very low right now, hope he recovers.

    From what I heard these deceased people were on a party boat, going from one party to another along the Danube.
Do not want to blame the victims but it is possible they were drinking a bit much and got too wild on the water.
Sad in any case.
I do not know maritime rules but believe the larger boats have the right of way.
I might be wrong but perhaps they thought they could out distance the larger boat and cut themselves off.
See it almost everyday here on the roads. People cutting other off, squeezing in and not staying in their lanes. My husband is a defensive driver and gives them a break but not everyone is that way. They will not learn until they experience a crash.
May they RIP.
The soul survivor must be feeling very low right now, hope he recovers.
   

    -@Marilyn Tassy

I don't think we can blame the victims quite yet.  We don't know if they had lights on or of they were all drunk.  I did read that the larger boat just loomed silently out of the dark and mowed them down.   I looked at the Heidelberg cruise boat and there's no way the captain could see a unlit small boat on the water at dusk from the location of the bridge. 

it used to be the case on road traffic accidents, it was always the driver's fault if they hit a pedestrian or cyclist.   I was always taught to be vigilant all the time.  Always assume those potential hazards are not paying attention to vehicles near them. Everyone and everything is a potential hazard so assume the worst.

Photos

The police have taken into custody the captain of a cruise ship that collided with a boat on the River Danube near Verőce, in northern Hungary, over suspicion of failing to provide help to the small boat's passengers. Two people died in the collision on Saturday night, while a search is underway for another three men and two women. Out of the altogether eight adults who were on board the motorboat, one male passenger sustained head and shoulder injuries but survived and swam ashore. He was later found disoriented on the river bank at Verőce. The man received urgent medical care and was taken to hospital. According to the police's website, the captain failed to alarm his crew after the collision. “He did not take any measures to rescue people needing help, nor did he stop his ship.”

The captain is of Czech nationality.

Still missing

The captain remains, the ship has left the country. In response to a question from index.hu, traffic lawyer Zoltán Borbély drew attention to two important elements:

Following the accident, at the beginning of the investigation, experts will examine the ship involved and document the technical equipment of the hotel ship in addition to the damage. If these have been done and the captain has not claimed a technical fault at this point, the ship will not be seized in this case,” the lawyer said. According to press reports, the vessel was fully inspected and presumably had no technical defects, so it was allowed to leave port in a legal manner. The Danube is currently still predominantly a manual navigation route, with captains, not artificial intelligence, navigating the waters. This also means that radars, infrared sensors and all kinds of technical equipment are available to captains when they are sailing. However, it would be unrealistic for the captain of the Heidelberg not to be able to detect a collision at all. On a vessel of this size, even the smallest obstacle can be detected.

Putting faces to the victims puts a different perspective to the accident.   If the missing haven't been found alive, they're all going to be dead.  Where people have gone into the river around Budapest, they seem to turn up about 50km further South a few weeks later. 

They talk about the technical sensors.  Implication is the captain wasn't paying attention or was otherwise not capable of doing the job. 

@fluffy2560

He failed to and just carried on, he knew he had hit something.

    @fluffy2560
He failed to and just carried on, he knew he had hit something.
   

    -@SimCityAT

Ok, didn't know that bit.

I don't remember exactly what the outcome of the last boat crash was which happened under a bridge in Budapest. 

If I remember correctly, the captain was Ukrainian.  Not sure if alcohol played part in that crash but he has been doing time for it presumably for negligence.  He must be out soon.  Mainly the victims then were South Korean tourists.

Pictures of the speedboat show it was a substantial boat - powerful engined - and to drive that on the Duna means you have to have a license and be aware of the rules meaning having working navigation lights etc.