16 IAN AND JANICE DONOFF
Passengers The honeymoon couple were among hundreds of people who had to clamber along a rope ladder strapped to the side of the ship to make their way to a life raft. Their dramatic escape was captured by a photographer in one of the most dramatic images of the night.
Mr Donoff, a retired businessman who had married his wife Janice, a solicitor, 11 days earlier, said: “I was in the theatre where there was a magic show and, suddenly, the magician seemed to disappear. This wasn’t part of his act, it was because he had seen something at that lower lever which caused him and other people to rush out of the auditorium. The lights started going out, mixing desks, sound systems everything went out.
“The tannoy announced: ‘The captain has reported a generator or fault and would ask you not to panic. Engineers are looking at it now’. But I thought, ‘Why would you get a scraping noise with a generator?’”
Growing increasingly concerned, the couple went to their cabin, number 7248 on Deck 7, and grabbed passports, wallets and life jackets before going to Muster Station B on the side of the ship tipping into the air, reaching it at 10.15pm.
Mr Donoff, from Edgware, north London, said: “From what I could work out, the ship had hit something. The captain was trying to take her closer to the mainland and didn’t want people to board the lifeboats until he’d managed that. As a result, many of the lifeboats were rendered useless because the listing of the ship was so severe. They just couldn’t physically be lowered into the water. It was impossible to move ours, and all 107 of us climbed out of the lifeboat.”
He said staff, who were cooks and waiters during the day, were trying to calm people down, but “they did not know what to do”.
“I thought we would not get out – a marriage should last more than 11 days,” said Mr Donoff. “There was this mad scramble for a ladder: people got crushed, pushed and goodness knows what – it was like a freefor-all.
“Children seemed to be treated with some sort of reverence, so they were pushed up quicker, but, apart from that, it was hell. Once we got to the top, you could see the sea. The local lifeguards had placed a rope ladder along the side, and we used our bottoms to go down one end, then turned around and scaled over what was the hull, where they helped you on little boats.
“It was a bit like crawling across an ice rink because it was wet, slippery and cold. Some people were freaking out; others were staying incredibly calm. It was absolutely treacherous and it wasn’t until 4.30am that we reached the water.
“The lifeboat crews were fantastic. They lifted people on to their boats before transferring them to other lifeboats to the mainland and evacuating them away from the ship. We are very, very lucky to be alive.”