Captain of cruise liner involved in Danube boat collision had previous accident: prosecutors

Reuters
The floating crane Adam Clark arrives on the Danube river in Budapest

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - The Ukrainian captain of a cruise liner that collided with a Hungarian pleasure boat on the Danube last week was captain of a boat in the Netherlands that caused an accident there in April, Hungarian prosecutors said on Thursday.

In a statement the prosecutors also said their investigation showed the captain had "deleted data from his phone" after the collision in Budapest.

The Mermaid, carrying a group of South Koreans on a pleasure cruise on the River Danube, capsized and sank on May 29 after being struck by the Viking Sigyn cruise liner. His lawyers said the Viking's captain was devastated by what had happened but had done nothing wrong.

(Reporting by Krisztina Than and Gergely Szakacs; Editing by Gareth Jones)