Loss of life in a small boat disaster in 2021 was ‘avoidable’, an official inquiry has found, as it called for Channel crossings to ‘end’.
Inquiry chairman Sir Ross Cranston described the incident as an ‘immeasurable human tragedy’.
The disaster in November 2021 – the worst in the Channel for 30 years – saw 27 men, women and children lose their lives, while four other people remain missing.
Among the victims were four members of an Iraqi family – seven-year-old Hasti Hussein, her 16-year-old brother Mubin, sister Hadiya, 22, and their mother Kazhal, 46.
Sir Ross said: ‘The practice of small boat crossings must end.
‘Apart from other reasons, it is imperative to prevent further loss of life.
‘Travelling on board a small, unseaworthy and overcrowded boat, and crossing one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, is an inherently dangerous activity.’
He added: ‘People smugglers dispatched an unseaworthy and overcrowded small boat from the French coast.
‘They had paid the people smugglers thousands of pounds for their place on the boat and had been assured of safe passage to the United Kingdom.
‘Only two of those on board would survive the journey.’
The inquiry confirmed an earlier investigation’s findings that there were a series of blunders in the search and rescue response.
It included mistakes by HM Coastguard and the French Naval vessel, Flamant, which ‘failed to respond to a Mayday relay which HM Coastguard had issued about the small boat’s plight, despite its proximity at the time’.
Flamant was the closest government vessel to the scene of the capsized 25ft dinghy, which was codenamed ‘Charlie’ in the bungled rescue operation.
The Flamant crew’s actions are subject to an ongoing French criminal investigation.
A previous report into the disaster – published in 2023 by the UK’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) – concluded British rescue teams stopped searching for drowning migrants whose final distress calls went unanswered by the Coastguard.
During the search and rescue operation a UK Border Force vessel, Valiant, located another migrant boat which was mistakenly thought to be the dinghy in distress, and further searches were called off.
Migrants from the capsized vessel remained in the water until the next day – some surviving for hours despite icy conditions – until bodies began to be discovered by a passing merchant vessel.
Today’s report said: ‘The position was that in November 2021, there was a widely held belief within HM Coastguard that callers from small boats regularly exaggerated their level of distress.
‘This widely held belief impacted negatively on the search and rescue response to incident ‘Charlie’.
‘It meant that when the Valiant and R163 [a search and rescue helicopter] did not find a sinking small boat and when the calls from incident ‘Charlie’ ceased, the [Search and Rescue Mission Co-ordinator] at Dover did not give any serious consideration to the alternative scenario, that the people on board had fully entered the water.’
The report said: ‘If a search for survivors had been undertaken adequately during November 24 2021, including during daylight hours, more lives would have been saved.’
One of the victims was believed to have died just half an hour before rescue, the inquiry heard.
In hearings over four weeks in March last year, the inquiry was told how the boat left the French coast shortly after 10pm on November 23 and around three hours into the journey it became ‘swamped’.
The inquiry’s counsel, Rory Phillips KC, detailed multiple distress calls made from the boat to authorities, but the incident was mistakenly marked as resolved and ‘no-one came to their rescue’.
One of the two survivors of the tragedy, Issa Mohamed Omar, described in evidence to the inquiry how he kept moving to survive the cold water.
‘In the morning I would say around 10 people were still alive,’ he said.
‘It’s a harrowing experience and I just don’t want to remember.
‘All night I was holding to what remained of the boat, in the morning I could hear people screaming, it’s something I cannot forget in my mind.’
Cold water expert Professor Michael Tipton concluded that while some of those on board may have drowned immediately, it was likely the majority of victims died over a long period of time before search and rescue vessels finally arrived.
Today’s report found HM Coastguard had been placed in ‘an intolerable position, with chronic staff shortages and limited operational capacity, contributing directly to the failure to rescue people in the water’.
The majority of the victims were from the Kurdistan region of Iraq.
There were also Somalis, Ethiopians, Afghans, Egyptians and one Iranian aboard, as well as someone believed to be Vietnamese whose nationality has not been conclusively determined.
The inquiry made 18 recommendations designed to strengthen the UK’s maritime search and rescue operations.
A Maritime and Coastguard Agency spokesman said it will carefully consider the findings and recommendations of the report, adding: ‘HM Coastguard remains focused on our vital role in safeguarding life at sea.’
Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said the Government would also carefully consider the report.
