TCG Isin expected to play vital role in locating Filo Jet’s voyage data recorder 514 metres below surface
A deep-sea search and rescue vessel is on its way to Cyprus as Turkey joins efforts to retrieve the 20 people still missing after a passenger ferry capsized off the island’s northern coast.
The TCG Isin will join the vast operation to find survivors after the high-speed ferry sank on Sunday barely four nautical miles outside the port town of Kyrenia.
Authorities confirmed late on Monday – the first of three days of national mourning in Turkish-held northern Cyprus – that the tragedy had claimed eight lives, increasing the number of passengers still unaccounted for from 17 to 20.
A total of 241 of the 267 people aboard the Filo Jet, bound for Taşucu on the Turkish mainland when it began to take on water, had been rescued, they said. Almost all were either Turkish or Turkish Cypriot.
International sympathy for the victims was highlighted as the Anglo-Cypriot founder of easyJet, Stelios Haji-Ioannou, offered €260,000 (£223,000) in support for the families of the deceased and missing, in a move hailed by Turkish Cypriot officials.
Visiting Kyrenia’s new port, where relatives gathered for news of loved ones on Monday, Tufan Erhürman, the self-styled state’s president, vowed search efforts would “continue with the same intensity, with no interruption, through the day and night”.
The Isin, capable of searching up to 3,000 metres below the sea surface, was due to arrive on Tuesday, he said, as he comforted the families of those still missing.
The ship is expected to play a vital role in recovering the ferry’s voyage data recorder, or black box, now viewed as key in deciphering the cause of a maritime disaster not seen since the breakaway territory declared independence in 1983.
Turkish Cypriot officials told the Guardian it was likely “all those responsible” would be charged with gross negligence as the seaworthiness of the 26-year-old ferry was also questioned.
The owners and shareholders of the privately owned company operating the passenger vessel have also been ordered to appear in court.
It remained unclear whether those still missing had been trapped on board.
“Nobody is saying it publicly, but the hope of any survivors being found at this point is very slim,” one official confided. “Those who weren’t rescued very likely didn’t find a lifejacket. We believe many were elderly people and mothers with babies and young kids.”
In testimony – and video footage – that emerged on Monday, panic-stricken passengers could be seen desperately looking for lifejackets and screaming before the double-hulled ferry flipped over. One mother, Ayten Biçer, described feeling her 12-year-old daughter slip from her hands and disappear as the ferry capsized and sank in a matter of minutes. “She was saying, ‘Don’t let go.’ And I didn’t let go of my daughter. I swear, I didn’t let her go,” she sobbed. Two of Biçer’s other children are among the 20 still missing.
The captain of the ferry and seven crew members were detained on Monday as judicial authorities launched an inquiry into the tragedy amid claims they had been among the first to abandon ship.
