The ship and the case: who will be responsible for the deaths of people on Lake Baikal

The captain and the owner of the vessel most often receive real sentences in cases of the death of tourists during cruises on rivers and lakes, lawyers told Izvestia, referring to judicial practice. This is how they commented on the prospects of investigating the deaths of five people during a tour of Lake Baikal — on May 19, the Sever-750 airboat with 18 passengers capsized near Turtle Rock. The emergency could have happened due to overload and a risky maneuver by the captain, experts suggested. But the owner of the airboat is talking about a possible manufacturing defect. And after the tragedy, the head of Buryatia promised "the strictest measures to control all types of services provided to tourists."

Who will be responsible for the death of tourists

The responsibility for the death of tourists on Lake Baikal may be borne by the ship's captain, its owner, the tour organizer, or the officials who launched the ship, the lawyers interviewed by Izvestia explained.

— Judicial practice in such cases shows that the real terms are given primarily to the captain and owners if it has been proven that they operated the vessel with violations. For example, they overloaded it, ignored the weather conditions, or they didn't have licenses. Officials who allowed a watercraft to go on a flight are often involved," Albert Khaleyan, partner of the Vector Prime Moscow Bar Association, told Izvestia.

On May 19, the Sever-750 airboat overturned in the area of Turtle Rock on Lake Baikal. Five tourists died, 13 people, including one child, were rescued, the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Republic of Buryatia reported. One woman received a laceration to her leg and was hospitalized, the ministry said. A criminal case has been opened into the provision of services that do not meet the requirements of life safety. The maximum penalty under this article of the Criminal Code is ten years in prison, the lawyers said.

— In the presence of victims, the courts, as a rule, impose real terms of imprisonment, especially if gross violations of security requirements are detected, — said Oleg Kim, lawyer, partner at Legal Advisor Law Office.

In addition to criminal liability, the relatives of the victims and the injured have the right to demand compensation for moral damage and material damage, the expert emphasized.

— The final punishment will depend on many factors — the results of examinations, data on weather conditions, the technical condition of the boat and the testimony of the surviving passengers, — Oleg Kim said.

Who organized the tour

The overturned airboat belonged to the tour operator Kristalny Baikal, the East Siberian Transport Prosecutor's Office clarified. According to the price list of the travel agency, the cost of excursions to the lake for one passenger reaches 16.5 thousand rubles. The 8-12-hour trip includes a boat trip along the Chivyrkuy Bay with a visit to the lake, the Ushkany Islands, the Monakhovo observation deck, the Baikal seal rookery and other places.

All the tourists on board were from the Moscow region. The daughter of one of the dead tourists told Izvestia that the entire tour cost about 80 thousand rubles.

"It was the final day of the tour, and Mom was supposed to be back the very next day,— she said.

Maria Tsivileva, director of the Crystal Baikal company, is a well—known person in the tourism business of the region. In 2017, she even participated in an open competition to fill the post of Minister of Tourism of Buryatia, but lost, Izvestia found out.

The ship was operated by an experienced captain, and the tragedy could have been caused by the fault of the boat manufacturer due to a manufacturing defect, Maria Tsivileva said in an interview with Izvestia. According to the woman, she herself was on the shore nearby at the time of the tragedy, and when she noticed that the boat tilted and overturned, she immediately started her own and went to pull people out.

— The boat went out on the water for the first time and it began to list. I don't know what happened there. I've rescued people on the same boat," the company's director said.

The distance to the shore was short — about 20-30 meters, and most of the passengers were rescued. Those who could not get out from under the overturned boat died - it was quite difficult, because at the time of the emergency the passengers were in a covered cabin.

More is not better: an airboat with tourists capsized on Lake Baikal

The tragedy occurred at Turtle Rock, several people died.

In addition, all the tourists were on the ship without life jackets, said Nikolai Zaitsev, Chief State Inspector of the Ministry of Emergency Situations. According to him, the weather was clear on the day of the trip, without wind and waves, the depth at the crash site was from 4 to 5 meters.

At the same time, earlier government agencies had complaints about the activities of "Crystal Baikal". In August 2025, Rostransnadzor found that the company was transporting passengers from Olkhon Island to the village of Turka on the boats Sirius, Druzhny and Pilgrim without a license. Then the company was sent a warning about the inadmissibility of violating the requirements of passenger transportation.

On May 19, the head of Buryatia, Alexei Tsydenov, announced that he had instructed to check all tourist sites in the region.

"We will take the strictest measures to control all types of services provided to tourists," he wrote on his social networks.

Izvestia contacted the Chris-Tour travel agency in Stupino, which organized a tour to Lake Baikal. They declined to comment on the situation.

Why did the ship capsize

In recent years, this is not the only case of a ship capsizing on Lake Baikal, Anastasia Mostipan, a tour guide in Buryatia, told Izvestia.

— Our boats turn over quite often. The last two cases were last winter. But it's not always related to tourists, more often to fishermen," she said.

In February 2026, Chinese tourists fell through the ice of Lake Baikal during an excursion on the UAZ, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation reported. Seven of the eight people died, including a 14-year-old teenager.

The previous incident with the capsizing of an airboat on Lake Baikal was recorded in the spring of 2024, Ivan, the captain of small vessels, told Izvestia. According to him, the ship went sideways from ice floe to ice floe. There were more people on the ship than there should have been.

According to experts, the main cause of the current incident may be the negligence of the ship's owners.

— It is possible to go out on this airboat at this time of the year, but you need to comply with the restrictions on the number of people, do not reboot it, — Anastasia Mostipan noted.

Usually, captains categorically refuse to take more passengers than the capacity allows, Svetlana Kontysheva, a Baikal tour guide with 24 years of experience, explained to Izvestia.

Dmitry Kontyshev, captain of small vessels and organizer of Baikal tours, stressed that the Sever-750 airboats can be used both in summer and winter, even though they are inferior in safety to air cushion vessels.

— Probably, the captain decided to please the guests with a dangerous jump from the ice into the water, — he said. — Due to the fact that there were not 10 people there, but 18, such a maneuver resulted in such a result. This was unacceptable and violates the security rules.

Airboats are not capable of such maneuvers by their design, especially when overloaded, he noted.