No Collision, Suddenly Capsized: Accident Footage Released

[Anchor]

Overnight search operations continued to find the six missing crew members of a tugboat that capsized off the coast of Oryukdo, Busan, yesterday (September 2), but no further rescue news has been reported. CCTV footage from the moment of the accident has been released for the first time, suggesting the vessel capsized while turning to the right.

KNN reporter Choi Han-sol has the report.

[Reporter]

This is closed-circuit television footage from a container ship capturing the tugboat that sank off the coast near Oryukdo, Busan, yesterday.

Vessel A, which was towing the container ship from the front, suddenly flips over in an instant while changing direction.

It capsized without any collision with the merchant ship.

The Korea Coast Guard is focusing on the possibility that the vessel became caught on a towline or was overturned by the recoil of the towline during the course of changing direction.

[Lee Kyung-yeol, Head of Investigation Division, Busan Coast Guard: We presume it capsized due to the towline while turning to the starboard (right), but we need to comprehensively analyze various objective evidence.]

The search for the missing persons is facing difficulties.

One person was found dead and one was rescued, but the search for the remaining six has made no progress.

[Sung Dae-hoon, Head of Busan Coast Guard: (During the night) we deployed 174 illumination flares and intensively searched the waters around the accident site. Because visibility was only about 30 cm, we were unable to find the missing persons.]

The Coast Guard plans to conduct a joint search with the Navy and other agencies by further expanding the search area.

However, the search faces limitations as the ship has sunk deeper than a depth of 60 meters, which is the limit for human divers to enter directly.

The Coast Guard stated that because the depth at the sinking site is too deep at 87 meters for divers to enter the hull directly, they plan to conduct an underwater search using the Navy's unmanned underwater vehicle.

Vessel A has sunk 9 km east of Oryukdo and has since drifted about 3.7 km northeast due to strong currents, making future weather conditions and ocean currents critical variables for the search.

(Video by: Kim Tae-yong, Jeon Jae-hyun / KNN)

Choi Han-sol, KNN
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.