Hungarian prosecutors say the Ukrainian captain arrested over the fatal sinking of The Mermaid in Budapest last week had been involved in another accident in the Netherlands in April
ADVERTISEMENTThe captain of a cruise liner involved in the fatal collision with a pleasure boat which sank in the River Danube last week was on board another liner which crashed into a tanker in the Netherlands, Hungarian prosecutors say.
The Mermaid pleasure boat capsized in the Danube in Budapest last week killing 28 people, mostly South Korean tourists, after colliding with the larger Viking Sigyn ship.
Following the collision on 29 May, Hungarian authorities arrested a 64-year-old Ukrainian man identified by police as C. Yuriy from Odessa who was the captain on board the Viking Sigyn.
He is currently being held as a suspect in Budapest. His lawyers say he was devastated but has done nothing wrong.
But Hungarian prosecutors now say he was involved in an accident in the Netherlands on 1 April as well.
The Viking Idun river ship collided with a cargo vessel while sailing from Antwerp to Ghent just after midnight near the city of Terneuzen.
A spokesman for Viking Cruises told Euronews the captain of the Viking Sigyn was onboard the Viking Idun on 1 April but "was not serving as the ship's captain at the time of the incident".
He said: "Viking Idun was under the command of another captain. We are unable to comment further while the investigations of both incidents are ongoing."
Hungarian prosecutors also said in a statement that the captain had "deleted data from his phone" after the collision but added that it was unclear whether the data was related to the accident.
Seven people were pulled from the Danube alive following the accident.
Seventeen bodies have been recovered and 11 people are officially listed as missing and presumed dead, including a Korean child and two Hungarian crew.