The inquest into (some) of those who died on the MFV Bugaled Breizh gets underway in London today. The original inquest was convened in Cornwall several years ago but has since been moved.
The vessel sank off the Lizard in 2004 with the loss of all hands. A NATO exercise was underway at the time and officially involved submarines from the Royal Navy, German Navy, French Navy and Royal Netherlands Navy – indeed the latter submarine HMNthS Dolfijn was in the area and took part in the unsuccessful search for survivors.
When the original inquest was established the Celtic League forwarded evidence on the interaction of submarines and MFVs over a number of years to the Coroner
https://www.celticleague.net/…/bugaled-breizh-league…/https://docs.google.com/…/1G-lVjtP6sKQcAMXacYgg…/edit
The Celtic League corresponded with various governments and agencies at the time of the sinking (January 2004) including the Royal Navy who firmly denied one of their vessels was involved.
A subsequent report by maritime experts in Brittany determined the possibility of a submarine’s involvement however a later French government (BEA) inquiry ruled it out.
The Bugaled Breizh incident mirrors the mystery surrounding the loss of the Breton trawler Cite D’Aleth with ten lives two decades earlier which was one of the first suspicious sinking’s related to submarine exercise activity that Celtic League inquired into.
You can find a considerable number of posts related to the Bugaled Breizh in the news archive on our Celtic League main site, (just type Bugaled Breizh in the search box top left of page):https://www.celticleague.net/
Image: The wreck of the Bugaled Breizh being towed back to Breizh on a barge after its recovery.
Bernard Moffatt
pp Celtic League Military Monitoring (4th October 2021)
