Three Filo Jet survivors describe locked doors and a shortage of life jackets

Three students who survived the sinking of the Filo Jet passenger catamaran off Girne said that water had started entering the vessel before it even went out to sea, the doors were locked during the sinking, and there were not enough life jackets.

Burak Arif Kaya (23), Sudenaz Sönmez (20) and Burak Can Keskin (22) were passengers on a service that left the port of Girne for Taşucu in Turkey (Silifke district, Mersin province) on 30 August and capsized. After they were rescued, staff from AFAD, Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority, took them to Kozan district in Adana province, where they were reunited with their families.

Kaya and Sönmez study at the Department of Dentistry at Cyprus University of Health and Social Sciences. Kaya told journalists that water appeared in the vessel as soon as they boarded, but the captain replied: “I am an experienced captain. I know this business better than you.”

“On the way, a sound came from the bow. Then we were reassured. Soon, the water inside the vessel began to rise. No one helped us; the doors were locked. There was no one left around. The captain and his assistant jumped off the vessel. I pulled a woman who was eight months pregnant, as well as Burak Can, Sudenaz and three children, out through a window. There were not enough life jackets,” he said.

Burak Can Keskin added that the floors of the vessel were wet when they boarded: “The vessel travelled a little, and then it stopped and began to sink at the same time. We got out by smashing a window. Otherwise, we would not have been able to escape — the waves were very strong. Even someone who knows how to swim could have drowned.”

The search off Girne is entering its sixth day. By the morning of 4 September, the bodies of two more people had been recovered from the seabed: the death toll rose to 10, while 18 people remain missing. The wreckage lies at a depth of around 550 metres, and inspection and search operations are being carried out around the clock with the help of underwater robots.