Inaccurate chart blamed for cruise tragedy
An inaccurate shipping chart has been confirmed as the cause of a cruise accident off the Greek island of Santorini last year.
Louis Hellenic Cruise Lines, owners of MV Sea Diamond, claims new findings have vindicated it from blame for the incident last April, which killed two French tourists.
It says the Hellenic Hydrographic Office has confirmed that the official chart of the area where the Sea Diamond accident occurred was “erroneousâ€.
A year ago, Louis announced the findings of specialist company Akti Engineering who provided a mapping of the area of the accident of MV Sea Diamond showing serious errors in the charts of the area.
These findings have now been backed up by the Hydrographic Office of the Hellenic Navy, which is the official government authority for conducting hydrographic surveys in Hellenic waters.
The results confirmed that the reef struck by MV Sea Diamond is actually located 131 meters from the coastline, instead of only 57 meters as was inaccurately marked on the official Hellenic Hydrographic Service nautical chart.
By Bev Fearis
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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