In the early hours of Sunday 20 April 2025, the MV Firebird struck a reef north of Sharm el-Sheikh while sailing toward Dahab. Seven divers and seven crew were on board. The Chamber of Diving and Water Sports received the distress report at 1:30am and confirmed significant damage to the vessel. According to the operator, everyone was off the boat within sixteen minutes, carrying their passports and essential belongings. Nobody was injured. It was the third Egyptian liveaboard lost in 2025, four months into the year.
What happened
The Firebird was on a night passage, the routine repositioning run liveaboards make between diving areas so guests wake up at the next site. The route from the Sharm el-Sheikh area toward Dahab runs up the Gulf of Aqaba coastline, water lined with fringing reef. Around 1am the vessel struck one of those reefs. The guests on board were four German tourists, one Swiss tourist and two Egyptian divers, with seven crew.
The evacuation appears to have been fast and orderly. The operator reported that thanks to the response of the crew and dive guide, all guests were off within sixteen minutes, with passports and essentials in hand. That detail matters more than it sounds. In several previous Red Sea incidents, guests lost everything including their documents, which turns a bad night into a consular ordeal. Military and shore-based assistance arrived between 2:30 and 3:00am, everyone was brought ashore and accommodated in a hotel, and guests were moved on to Hurghada the following day.
The vessel
The Firebird was a 32-metre wooden-hulled motor yacht with eight cabins and capacity for sixteen guests, owned by the Hurghada-based operator Into the Blue, which had recently rebranded from Deep Blue Cruises. On the night of the incident she was sailing at less than half capacity. The vessel's final status has never been clearly confirmed in public reporting: whether she sank, was salvaged, or remained on the reef. The CDWS statement confirmed only significant damage. The Atlas will update this record if her fate is documented.
The night passage question
The Firebird made 2025 three losses in four months. The Triton, a newly built liveaboard on a delivery run from Port Rashid, capsized in rough weather off Jabal Al-Zeit on 6 February with six crew aboard, all rescued. The Seven Seas burned at her mooring in Port Ghalib on 13 March. And looking across the wider incident record, a pattern sits in plain view: the Sea Story capsized in the early hours, the Seaphoria grounded at Daedalus around 2am with the captain asleep, and the Firebird struck her reef around 1am.
Night passages are not the problem in themselves. They are standard practice across the global liveaboard industry, and the economics of a dive itinerary depend on them. But a night transit along a reef-lined coast asks the most of a wheelhouse at exactly the hour a watch is hardest to keep sharp. The investigation into the Firebird has not published findings, so the cause remains formally undetermined. The Atlas notes only that the hours between midnight and dawn keep appearing in this log.
“Sixteen minutes from impact to everyone off, with passports. Whatever the investigation finds about the strike, the evacuation is what a drilled crew looks like.”
– Red Sea Log EditorialMV Firebird is part of the permanent incident record maintained by the Atlas. The outcome was as good as a reef strike at 1am can produce: a fast evacuation, no injuries, documents saved. The open questions are the cause of the strike and the fate of the vessel, neither of which has been published. We will update this record when the investigation releases findings. If you were on board or have direct information about this incident, use the comment section below.
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