A 51-year-old man and his 8-year-old daughter have died after their speedboat crashed in the harbour of the Cornish tourist town of Padstow, police said.
Four other family members were airlifted to hospital suffering from serious injuries after being thrown from the boat.
Superintendent Jim Colwell of Devon and Cornwall Police said some of the injuries were “life threatening” and “life changing”.
Members of the public alerted Falmouth coastguard at around 3.00pm that six people had been thrown from the craft, adding that it had been “out of control for a short time” and had struck other boats.
Eyewitness Simon Lewins said he saw the boat going “a bit too fast” before suddenly veering off and “depositing” passengers into the sea.
“It kept going off in ever decreasing circles,” he told the BBC. “The screams coming from the people in the water were pretty bad.”
He described the coastguard who jumped in and stopped the boat as “a hero.”
The injured were being treated at Derriford Hospital in Plymouth, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency said.
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