A court in Spain has opened an investigation into the death of a German woman who died after being attacked by a shark while sailing 270 nautical miles (500km) off the Canary Islands on Tuesday.
According to the country’s maritime rescue service, Salvamento Marítimo, the 30-year-old woman was travelling on the British-flagged catamaran Dalliance Chichester about 110 miles west of the Western Saharan city of Dakhla when the attack happened just before 4pm local time.
The boat’s crew made an emergency call to the Spanish rescue service, which shares responsibility for the zone with the its Moroccan counterpart. The Moroccan authorities asked Salvamento Marítimo to lead the operation effort as it had no rescue craft in the area.
A Spanish air force search-and-rescue helicopter was scrambled from Gran Canaria, which reached the woman at 20.05 on Thursday. Salvamento Marítimo also contacted nearby boats, one of which managed to offer assistance while the helicopter was on the way.
The woman, who had lost a leg in the attack, suffered cardiorespiratory failure on the helicopter flight and was pronounced dead at the Doctor Negrín hospital in Las Palmas on Gran Canaria.
A spokesperson for the Canaries’ courts service confirmed that a court in Las Palmas had begun an investigation into the incident, “as it does in the case of any accidental death”. They said no one had been called to testify. The Guardia Civil police force also said it was looking into the matter, and referred the Guardian to the courts.
According to the boat-tracking website VesselFinder, the Dalliance Chichester left the port of Las Palmas on 14 September.
Meanwhile, Salvamento Marítimo crews helped rescue 122 people who were trying to reach the Canary Islands on the perilous Atlantic route from west Africa. So far this year, 26,758 people including children have reached the Canary Islands by sea – 12,304 more than last year – once again placing a huge strain in the archipelago’s reception infrastructure.
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The Spanish migration NGO Caminando Fronteras estimated that more than 5,000 people died trying to reach Spain by sea in the first five months of this year, the overwhelming majority of them on the Atlantic route.