The video, which the Venezuelan Navy released and is heavily edited, shows a Venezuelan seaman firing an AK-47 at the ship and then the two ships impacting, with the patrol boat quickly taking on water. The incident occurred in the early hours of March 30th, 2020, and the cruise ship, which was supposedly undergoing repairs at the time, was clearly making little if any speed through relatively calm waters.
Video released by the Venezuelan Navy shows them shooting at the RCGS Resolute cruise ship then it shows the Resolute impacting the side of the GC-23 Naiguata and it shows severe damage to the Naiguata.
The exact circumstances that led to the incident remain murky. Resolute's operator, Columbia Cruise Services, has already released a statement accusing the Venezuelan Navy of attempting to illegally seize the ship in international waters. Then, when the cruise ship's captain refused to divert to a Venezuela port, Naiguatá attempted to physically block it from leaving the area, which apparently resulted in the collision, according to the company. All 44 crewmen aboard the patrol vessel were rescued after the ship sunk.
The Venezuelan Navy says Naiguatá was conducting a maritime traffic control operation at the time and claims it was the Resolute that deliberately turned into its patrol boat. However, if the Venezuelan ship had been the one that turned into the path of the cruise ship the positioning could have largely been the same. The Resolute is significantly larger and less maneuverable than the Naiguatá, as well. The official video notably does not show the full sequence of events.
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