Skippers face community service for fatal Wadden Sea accident; Boy, 12, never found
The Public Prosecution Service (OM) recommended community service for the two skippers involved in an accident between a speedboat and a water taxi on the Wadden Sea, in which three men and a 12-year-old boy died in October 2022. The boy’s body has never been found. In an emotional moment in the Leeuwarden court on Tuesday, the relatives of the victims demanded that the skippers admit their mistakes, RTL Nieuws reports.
The skippers were sailing too fast and did not communicate well, according to the investigation. “And now I have to continue without my husband and one of my pieces of gold,” said the woman who lost her 46-year-old husband and 12-year-old son in the collision. “How difficult can it be to take responsibility for your mistakes?”
The collision happened on 21 October 2022. The speedboat was traveling at 55 kilometers per hour just before the accident. The taxi was traveling at almost 30 kilometers per hour. The speed limit in the Schutengat, the shipping channel near Terschelling where the accident happened, is 20 kilometers per hour. Arco Z. (49), the captain of the speedboat, said he didn’t know there was a speed limit. Kornelis P. (35), the water taxi skipper, said he couldn’t remember the accident.
The woman also said that she thinks she will never find her missing son. “The chance of that happening is very small,” she said. “I no longer know whether I want anything to be found. Now I cling to the idea that the sea is looking after him and that he has a watery grave.”
The wife of the 49-year-old victim from Tjalleberd, whose body was found on the beach of Terschelling 16 days after the crash, called the collision “a disaster resulting from a series of multiple mistakes.” Mistakes she blames the skippers for. “Your actions and reflection show that you are incompetent and incapable as skipper and captain. In my opinion, you are guilty of the deaths of three men and a child.”
