Body of missing 18 year old boat boy found off Phuket
SCREENSHOT: Phuket People’s Voice
Searchers have found the body of 18 year old Kittipong “Boy” Samunboot off the east coast of Phuket, near to where he fell off a tour speedboat on Wednesday.
He fell overboard from the tour speedboat “Choksuphasan” on Wednesday about 4pm and had not been seen since, despite ongoing searches involving the Royal Thai Navy and local fishermen.
The area he was found was just off the east coast of Phuket, east off Koh Sirae.
“Choksuphasan” collided with the luxury yacht “Stella”, which was skippered by 47 year old Russian Alexander Gorbunov. The large motor yacht only suffered slight damage in the collision. The captain was able to rescue 36 of the 46 tourists on board “Choksuphasan 35” and take them back to shore at the Ao Por Grand Marina.
The 49 year old captain of “Choksuphasan”, Surat Mat-O-Sot, died in hospital following injuries sustained in the collision.
Surat was involved in another boat collision in 2014 off Krabi that killed two South Korean tourists and injured 26 others. On that occasion he was captain of “Seastar 29”, carrying around 40 tourists returning from a day-trip to Maya Bay when it collided with the fishing vessel “Sinpichai 11”. He spent two years in prison over that incident but, upon release, started skippering boats off Phuket again.
Read more about the incident HERE.
