Very serious accident with rental boat

2025-05-19
L-25/11
Bergsfjorden (Lopa Municipality, Kingdom of Norway)

On 19 May 2025, four members of a group of five tourists from Lithuania went fishing in Bergsfjorden, divided between two identical boats. While heading out, they observed something ahead on the horizon that they described as small ‘tornadoes’ and decided to turn around and return to the fishing camp. At one point, while proceeding south along the eastern side of Silda, one of the boats were suddenly exposed to strong winds from the port side, causing the boat to heel to starboard and capsize within a few seconds. One of the tourist angler managed to alert others by mobile phone after reaching shore. The other tourist angler died as a result of the capsize.

Status of safety investigation:
2025-05-23 Notification received
2025-05-23 Initiated preliminary assessment for decision to conduct a safety investigation
2025-07-02 Decision made not to conduct a safety investigation (Point 1 of Paragraph 4 of Article 21 of the Safety Investigation Law, Point 33 of the Description of Procedure) but a representative was appointed to participate in the accident safety investigation conducted by the Norwegian Safety Investigation Authority
2026-05-12 Published safety investigation report or here