THE captain of a sister ship rejected a plea for help from the Egyptian Red Sea ferry that sank with the loss of about 1,000 lives in order to avoid a “second catastrophe”.

Salah Jomaa said that the crew of the stricken Al Salam Boccaccio 98 had radioed his vessel, which was plying the same route in the opposite direction, to ask if he could turn back and mount a rescue effort.

“I took the decision not to turn around to protect the lives of the 1,800 passengers on board the Saint Catherine,” he told the Egyptian daily, al-Ahram. Turning to help the doomed ferry could have sunk his own ship “especially as the weather conditions were bad”.

“They informed me that the company director Mamdouh Ismail was asking me to continue on my course to avoid a second catastrophe,” he added.

The captain said that he alerted all other vessels in the area and asked them to come to the rescue. Yet a search and rescue operation was not launched until seven hours after the ferry sank. The Egyptian Government said last night that it had only been informed about the disaster nearly six hours after the ship sank.

The Al Salam Boccaccio 98, carrying 1,400 people, caught fire shortly after leaving the Saudi port of Duba for the 120-mile journey to the Egyptian port of Safaga. The 36-year-old vessel disappeared from radar, unable even to send out an SOS. However, the Egyptian news agency reported last Friday that the Saint Catherine had received a distress message in which the captain of the stricken roll-on, roll-off ferry had said that his ship was in danger of sinking.

Mr Jomaa has been suspended by the maritime authorities in Egypt, a decision that he said was taken because of an argument he had with a member of a parliamentary commission of inquiry into the disaster.

Captains are obliged to assist other vessels in distress under rules set down by the International Maritime Organisation. The rules state that the master “is bound to proceed with all speed to their assistance”. However, the rules contain a get-out clause under which the master can decide not to alter course if it would put his own ship at risk.

Andrew Linington, the spokesman for NUMAST, the seafarers’ union, said: “It seems extraordinary that the sister ship did not go to help. The weather was not so extreme and it is not sufficient to refuse assistance if there is only a small risk to your own ship.

“As well as the legal obligation, there is also a moral obligation. One of the founding principles of seamanship is to go to the aid of those in distress.”

Both ships were operated by the Egyptian El Salam Maritime Transport Company, whose offices in the Egyptian port of Safaga were ransacked on Monday by hundreds of angry relatives of those who died. Most of the passengers were Egyptians returning from jobs in Gulf countries, while others were returning from pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. Egyptian officials said the number of survivors stood at 388.

Survivors and relatives have accused El Salam Maritime of using a ship that did not meet safety standards. They have also accused the crew of failing to turn back to Saudi Arabia when there was still time after the fire broke out.

The Saudi authorities yesterday refused to allow passengers to board another Egyptian ferry in Duba, deeming it unsafe. “We made our checks and found it was in a bad state. It was old,” a port official in Jeddah said.

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