The horrific drowning of two influencers after a yacht party happened when their overcrowded boat was sunk by a wave and they had refused to wear lifejackets, cops have revealed
Aline Tamara Moreira de Amorim, 37, and Beatriz Tavares da Silva Faria, 27, were found dead after their launch sank off a stretch of Brazil‘s coast known as the Devil’s Throat.
Now nearly a month after the drownings police say they died when their overloaded boat was swamped as it returned to the Brazilian coast. Sao Vincente police commissioner Marcos Alexandre Alfino says the influencers had refused to wear life jackets, local media reported on October 25.
He said: ‘Some didn’t want to put them on because they were taking selfies.
‘They said that they get in the way of their tanning.’
The revelation came after the boat’s skipper, not named by police, had given extensive interviews to police over the deaths.
The captain, one of five survivors, said he had been ordered to take six influencers to the shore despite his boat having a maximum capacity of five passengers.
So when the craft was hit by a huge wave on 29th September, reports local media, it was too heavy to ride it out and began to sink.
The skipper told police he had tried desperately to save everyone.
Beatriz’s body was found first drifting out to sea and was recovered by Brazil’s Maritime Firefighters.
Aline was found dead a week later washed up on the coast of Itaquitanduva Beach.
Police are now trying to establish if their deaths were simply a tragic accident or could have been prevented.
Commissioner Alfino explained: ‘All this is being determined very calmly to conclude if the fatalities were based on recklessness or negligence.’
Heartbreakingly mum-of-one Aline, who could not swim, had posted her last social media images as she posed on the boat in a bikini.
CrossFit trainer Beatriz had been a model since she was a schoolgirl.
Local media named the survivors as Vanessa Audrey da Silva, Camila Alves de Carvalho, Daniel Goncalves Ferreira, Gabriela Santos Lima and Natan Cardoso Soares da Silva.
Vanessa later told local media that a group of friends and influencers had met up to party on a luxury yacht and spent the day cruising and drinking.
They later split into two groups to get back to shore but one was swamped by a wave on the return journey.
Vanessa said she had managed to scramble into a life jacket and survived by clinging to rocks: ‘There was a moment in the water when no one could see anyone. I was fighting for life.’
Another survivor Camila says she clutched a life jacket in her hands and clung on for dear life: ‘There were very strong waves, we almost died. We didn’t know how to swim.
‘I knew that I couldn’t take it for long. I hurt my foot and swallowed a lot of water.
‘We threw ourselves into the rocks.’