A loud bang on the Ammersee and cries for help shortly afterwards triggered a large-scale search on Thursday night. A motor yacht only stuck out of the water with its bow.
- A 21-year-old from Riederau was at night on Thursday (May 21) with a motor boat probably too much quickly buoys field before Riederau in Ammersee driven on a sailing ship.
- The boat smashed and capsized, and the young man was able to save himself on land.
- However, it took some time until he was found and it was considered certain that there were no other casualties. More than 100 rescue workers were deployed.
- You can always read the latest news and stories from Lake Ammersee and beyond, and only from us.
Ammersee: Loud bang and cry for help from the water at night
Riederau - It was one of the first more or less mild early summer nights when people stayed outside and enjoyed the atmosphere on the lake shore . Fortunately. Because around 1:30 a.m. they saw the motorboat passing the Riederauer Dampfersteg, heard the bang and then the cry for help.
When the news came a little later that a young man had come out of the water at the Riederau sailing club, almost all the water guards around the Ammersee were alarmed.
Large-scale operations at night on Lake Ammer: helicopters, fire brigade, rescue service - divers and water watch alerted
"We were alone with 40 men in action," reports operations manager Christoph Ruml from the district water guard Landsberg in an interview with the Starnberg Mercury. There were also forces from the police, including helicopters, fire services, emergency services and divers. Finally, it was assumed that people were in distress at sea.
The Herrsching water guard was on the water with seven emergency services. The Deputy Technical Director of the Starnberg District Water Service, Stefan Schiller, was also present. “First of all, we passed the yellow water measuring buoy between Herrsching and Riederau,” he says. It would not have been the first time that someone had hung on there. But not this time.
Large-scale operation on Lake Ammer: the bow of a motor boat protrudes from the dark water
Shortly before the Herrschinger reached Riederau, he had already seen the bow of the damaged motorboat protrude from the water, reports Schiller. "He must have driven through the buoy field at a relatively high speed," he says in view of the wreckage that the water guards later found floating on the lake. "We couldn't see much. It was very dark. "
Large-scale operation at Lake Ammer: Motorboat chases a sailboat and is completely destroyed
When it got lighter, the emergency services also recognized the sailboat against which the motorboat had crashed - also badly damaged. According to the police, the water watchers could even find a wooden plank on the sailboat with the license plate of the motorboat that caused the accident.
Motorboat rams sailboat and sinks at Lake Ammer: 21-year-old driver had 1.2 per thousand
Since it was not clear for a long time whether there were other people on the motor boat, numerous divers and rescue workers were deployed on the lake and on land. As of Thursday afternoon, the police assume that the 21-year-old was alone on board at the time of the accident. According to the Dießen police, his statements were initially not clear, his breath alcohol value was 1.2 per thousand.
So far, the police have assumed that the 21-year-old took a night jaunt on the lake with two friends. He dropped the friends shortly before the accident and then drove to his buoy. The police suspect that there were two main reasons for the accident: alcohol and darkness.
While the 21-year-old was brought to the hospital for safety at night, the Wasserwacht Buch was also called to use his lifting bags and divers to retrieve the sunken motorboat from a depth of 16 meters. It was not until 8 a.m. before the water rescuers could pull the destroyed boat ashore. The property damage is estimated at 20,000 euros, that of the sailboat at 5000 euros. The young Riederauer now faces criminal proceedings for endangering shipping.
"Such individual assignments are rather rare," said operations manager Ruml. Of course there are longer missions in storms, but never for just one alarm. Herrschinger also does not have such nightly operations every year. In the meantime they had to go back to their station to transfer their divers. There was no thought of much sleep. "Maybe half an hour," says Schiller. At least this was not unusual for Ruml, as he is a full-time paramedic who is often on the go at night and more practiced in short sleep.
In addition to the police and emergency services from Landsberg, Dießen, Seefeld and Türkenfeld, the volunteer forces of the water guards Dießen, Utting, Schondorf, Herrsching, Tutzing and Buch as well as the district water guard, the fire brigade Dießen, representatives of the integrated control center and divers from Grafrath and Fürstenfeldbruck were deployed.
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