Six people were killed and 39 others were rescued on 2025-03-27 after a tourist submarine sank off the Red Sea resort city of Hurghada, Egyptian officials said.
The incident happened about one kilometre from the coast at around 10:00 local time, according to live updates from the BBC and statements from the Red Sea governor. The vessel was operated by Sindbad, a company that runs tourist submarine trips from the Hurghada area. Authorities said the accident involved 45 tourists and five Egyptian crew members.
Officials said all six people who died were Russian citizens. The governor later said the tourists on board came from Russia, Norway, Sweden and India, while the Russian embassy in Egypt said all the tourists aboard were Russian. The local account also said there were no missing tourists after the rescue operation.
The circumstances of the sinking remained uncertain. In the hours after the accident, one Russian tour operators' group suggested the submarine may have struck a reef at a depth of around 20 metres and lost pressure, but that account was described as unconfirmed. A survivor speaking to Russian media said water began pouring in while passengers were taking their seats and that two hatches were open. Those claims were not independently verified in the BBC coverage.
The Red Sea governor said the submarine had a valid licence and that the crew leader held the correct scientific certificates. Sindbad later cancelled upcoming trips, and authorities said they were investigating the cause of the sinking.
The accident came less than five months after another tourist vessel, Sea Story, sank in the same area in November, leaving 11 people dead or missing and 35 survivors. That earlier disaster has renewed scrutiny of safety standards around leisure boating and submersible tourism in one of Egypt's most important resort zones.
Hurghada depends heavily on foreign tourism, and the Red Sea coast has become a major draw for travellers seeking reef excursions and underwater attractions. The latest accident will deepen concern in an industry that has already been shaken by repeated maritime incidents in the same waters.
For rescue crews, the immediate task was to recover passengers and crew from the sinking vessel and make sure nobody remained unaccounted for. The wider task, now underway, is to determine whether the submarine hit an obstacle, suffered a technical failure or encountered a problem during boarding or deployment from its floating platform.
Until that investigation concludes, officials have limited themselves to confirming the casualties, the rescues and the fact that the vessel went down in shallow water just off the Hurghada coast.
