Manpreet Kaur had made the perilous crossing from France with 73 others on a ‘wholly unsuitable’ dinghy that was taking on water and spilling fuel
A 36-year-old woman was trampled to death at the bottom of a migrant dinghy as a UK border force staff scrambled to rescue those on board, a maritime investigation has found.
Manpreet Kaur, an Indian national, became submerged in a mixture of water and fuel as people rushed to get to safety when the 7.8-metre-long inflatable boat started to collapse.
The dangerous and overcrowded vessel was carrying 74 migrants across the Channel on 9 September last year when it started to sink – losing air, taking on water, and spilling fuel.
A UK border force vessel, BF Volunteer, came to its aid at 10:57am and passed a rescue line across to those aboard the dinghy, so that the boat could be brought alongside and people could disembark.
As this happened, those onboard the small boat rushed to one side and the dinghy started to collapse, resulting in multiple people entering the water, a report published on Thursday found.
In the resulting confusion, Ms Kaur was trampled and pushed to the bottom of the boat where she remained submerged for a prolonged period before she was found and recovered.
The investigation by the Maritime Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) found that the boat was “wholly unsuitable for the voyage”, adding: “Its poor construction, overcrowding, low freeboard and unsafe fuel and engine arrangement made it vulnerable to flooding and collapse”.
The dinghy had set off from the inshore canal system at Malo-les-Bains in northern France in the early hours of 9 September 2025, in fine weather, where there was almost no wind, and the sea was calm. Some migrants attempting the crossing got on the dinghy when it launched, while others, including Ms Kaur, were picked up from a beach along the coast line.
They waded out into chest-deep water before being helped on board. A French search and rescue vessel intercepted the boat 30 minutes after it left the French coast, at around 4:15am, and shadowed the dinghy as it continued towards UK waters.
As the flimsy boat started to take on water, those onboard had to bail it out using plastic bottles, the report revealed.
The engine also required refuelling on at least four occasions, with petrol spilling into the bottom of the boat. At the time of rescue, the water inside the inflatable vessel was more than knee-deep in places, and some people, including Ms Kaur, had chemical burns caused by the mixture of seawater and petrol.
Investigators believe Ms Kaur would have been weakened by exposure to petrol fumes.
Occupants feared for their safety when physical and verbal fights broke out as the conditions worsened. Many of those onboard were cold, dehydrated, weak, and some had temporarily lost the use of their legs, the MAIB investigation found.
By 11:21am, UK Border Force had managed to rescue everyone on board the dinghy apart from Ms Kaur, and waited for the RNLI to arrive, at around 11:37am, to retrieve her.
The MAIB investigation concluded that Ms Kaur was “not identified promptly because the crew were managing a mass rescue from a rapidly deteriorating boat”. They said that the Border Force crew on hand had not been trained in recovering an unconscious person from a collapsing small boat, and so assistance could not be provided to Ms Kaur within a crucial 10-minute window of her first getting into difficulty.
Investigators recommended that the Border Security Command review its training and procedures on how to respond to a similar situation. They noted that, the day after Ms Kaur died, Border Force responded to a similar incident where they were able to save the life of person who was unconscious in a different small boat.
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