Alexander Burckle and Elizabeth Webster had booked a romantic trip to Lanai, a small island nearby, with the Maui Sail Company in 2021. It was part of their honeymoon.
Together with 42 other passengers, they boarded the boat. They were then told that the boat would anchor in one location for one hour so that everyone could go snorkeling. However, things did not go as expected for the couple. The two got entangled in the waves, so they couldn’t get back after fifteen minutes of slogging. The boat left and just left them behind. The couple desperately tried to stay afloat, but the efforts led them even deeper into the troubled waters.
‘SOS’, ‘HELP’
During the trial, it became clear that all 44 passengers entered the water at around 10:50 a.m. and that they returned to the boat at different times. Buckle and Webster, both experienced, began their return to the boat an hour later. But suddenly the waves were so high that turning back was no longer an option and they were forced to swim to the island of Lanai, which was strongly discouraged.
The couple made it to shore but said they were “tired and dehydrated” at the trial. In an attempt to get help, they wrote ‘SOS’ and ‘HELP’ in the sand. They were later recovered by residents of the island. They were given water and a telephone. Three hours after they had disappeared, they were able to contact the travel agency, which had not noticed that anyone was missing.
The first mate would have counted three times and said twice that two people were missing. The third time he would have ended up with 44 passengers. According to passenger Jessica Herberd, who gave an interview to Good Morning America, however, the crew would not have asked the passengers to sit or stand, which made it difficult to count. According to the couple’s lawyer, the passengers were also not assigned a zone to swim in.
A Coast Guard investigation into the incident shows negligence on the part of the captain. The company is said to have revised the procedures for counting passengers in the meantime.
