2012 - First Year the tourist submarine industry has ever recorded fatalities

Last April M.E. posted The First Celebrity Submarine Fatality. At the time we noted that private submarines can be especially deadly and provided readers this example. We then wished three VIPs this:

Gentlemen, this is nothing like solo flying; which of you will be first to learn of his awaiting peril? Stanley (we presume) still has no insurance. Cameron and Branson have assurances (from? - not from the Royal Navy, one must suspect.) All have pluck. One may soon be happy if he can be plucked to the surface. Continued good fortune to all three.

Alas, the first reported fatalities of a private submarine accident were 3 tourists. Today - Three Germans Drown in Egypt Submarine Accident.

A German couple and their child drowned in a tourist submarine accident on Thursday off Egypt's Red Sea resort town of Hurghada, security officials told AFP. The victims were a German man, his wife and child, they said. Thirteen other tourists of different nationalities were rescued. Egyptian state television said a preliminary tourism police investigation found that the submarine had collided with a coral reef, shattering a glass partition and filling the vessel with water.

Four of the rescued tourists were taken to hospital, state television reported. Molten Eagle guesses that the"glass partition" shattered by collision with a coral reef was actually a glass viewing port for the tourists. How 3 drowned and 13 have so far survived is another mystery. Though this kind of accident has certainly been rare, it has also been entirely predictable for this submariner, who is very familiar with civilian safety (pdf link).

Submarines are always silent and strange.