A tragic maritime accident off the coast of Vietnam’s popular Phu Quoc Island has left 15 Indian tourists dead after a sightseeing speedboat overturned just minutes after departing a nearby island on Saturday afternoon. Vietnamese law enforcement has detained the vessel’s captain as investigations into the deadly incident get underway.
The 36-passenger craft — carrying 32 Indian tourists and 4 Vietnamese crew members — flipped less than 500 meters from shore shortly after leaving Hon May Rut Ngoai, a small islet located off the southern tip of Phu Quoc, Vietnam’s largest island. Authorities confirmed Sunday that 57-year-old captain Nguyen Hong Hai has been taken into custody, facing formal investigation over suspected violations of national waterway transport safety regulations.
All 15 deceased passengers were participants in an incentive corporate trip organized by Lava International, an Indian consumer electronics and smartphone manufacturer. The excursion was planned for the company’s employees, distributors and retail partners, the firm confirmed in statements following the accident.
Ashish Kumar, a Lava distributor from Guntur, India who witnessed the crash from the nearby shore, recalled the chaotic scene to the Associated Press. The tour group had split into three separate speedboats to travel between the area’s islands. When the first boat departed and began to capsize, Kumar and his group immediately began shouting for help. Nearby boats rushed to the scene, but by the time rescuers arrived, many passengers had already been overcome by rough open water.
Ha Van Loc, a local boat captain who was operating in the area at the time of the 12:40 p.m. accident, told Vietnamese state outlet VN Express that he spotted the overturned vessel with around a dozen people clinging to its upturned hull. Dozens more passengers, many of whom were not wearing their required life jackets, struggled against churning 3-meter-high waves. Loc explained that rough conditions prevented his larger vessel from getting close enough to pull all survivors aboard, for fear that his boat’s propeller would injure people floating in the water. He and his crew threw rope-tethered life buoys to struggling passengers, pulling four survivors to safety within 10 minutes. Loc then filmed the scene to alert other nearby boat operators, prompting a mass rescue response that brought nearly a dozen additional local boats and official rescue teams to the site within minutes.
Despite the rapid response, choppy seas with waves reaching up to 10 feet slowed rescue operations significantly. Smaller jet skis ultimately proved far more maneuverable than larger vessels, ferrying survivors back to shore one by one. Reports from surviving passengers indicate that the captain did instruct all guests to put on life jackets before departure, but many passengers instead carried the flotation devices in their hands. When the boat overturned, multiple passengers were trapped inside the hull, forced to escape through the vessel’s bow or side windows.
Eyewitness Kumar also noted that no dedicated emergency medical personnel were waiting on shore when survivors were brought back to land. Local tourists and tour company staff took turns administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation and oxygen to unconscious victims before emergency personnel arrived. Two emergency resuscitation doctors and a nurse were eventually dispatched to the site, and all 17 injured survivors were transported to Phu Quoc Sun Hospital for treatment.
Updates from the Indian Embassy in Hanoi, shared via social media on Sunday, confirmed that 16 of the 17 survivors have already been discharged from medical care and are en route back to India. One survivor remains in a Vietnamese hospital in critical condition. The embassy added that the remains of the 15 deceased victims are being transferred to Ho Chi Minh City to complete official formalities before being repatriated to India by air. Officials confirmed that 10 of the dead were from India’s southern Tamil Nadu state, three from Andhra Pradesh, and two from Kerala.
Phu Quoc Island, located off Vietnam’s southern coast, is one of the country’s top beach tourism destinations, drawing millions of domestic and international visitors annually to its white sand coastlines and clear tropical waters. Hon May Rut Ngoai, the departure point for the fatal trip, sits roughly 10 kilometers south of Phu Quoc’s main tourist areas.
India has emerged as one of Vietnam’s fastest growing international tourism markets in recent years. Vietnamese officials project the country will welcome roughly 750,000 Indian visitors in 2025, a nearly 50% increase from 2024 numbers. Industry leaders attribute the rapid growth to expanded direct flight connections between major Indian and Vietnamese cities, as well as Vietnam’s flexible liberalized e-visa policy for Indian travelers.