MOSS BANK, UK — The distraught wife of missing St Helens diver Alan Costello has spoken of the heartache she is enduring while his body remains undiscovered in the Red Sea, off Egypt. It is now more than two months since the 52-year-old Fingerpost chemist, who is presumed dead, failed to resurface from an underwater exploration of a shipwreck with members of the St Helens-based Northern Union Sub Aqua Club. A series of thorough searches of the vessel and nearby waters have taken place, which have concluded that the father-of-three's body is not within the wreck of the bomb-hit 1940s coal ship, the Rosalie Moller, which lies 400-miles off the shore. A group of fellow divers recently returned to the wreck to leave a memorial plaque as a lasting tribute to their friend. This week, Tracy Costello, Alan's wife, criticised the Egyptian authorities and the Foreign Office for their handling of the case as she spoke of her struggle to come to terms with her grief while Alan's body remains lost. She also claims that in the crucial moments after the vastly experienced and advanced skilled diver vanished, the Egyptian authorities waited two hours to launch a search and rescue mission while they checked whether he had holiday insurance. Speaking from her home in Moss Bank, Tracy said: "It is just devastating. I just want to bring him home. When someone dies you normally have a body, and then a funeral. But there can be no closure when it is like this. "Alan and I spent nearly every living moment together, we worked together and lived our lives together - we were like two halves of a whole." She described the moments that she learned Alan, a passionate underwater historian, had gone missing: "Ten hours after he was last seen I received a phonecall at work from police (in St Helens) who informed me that there was nothing to worry about but my husband has gone missing during a dive. "We had dived together as a couple and I knew if he had gone missing there was everything to worry about. "I came home and phoned the Foreign Office and was informed that a search was underway. I was later to find out that the Egyptians waited two hours to mount a search for Alan while they waited to find out whether he had holiday insurance. Two hours is a long time - I'm confused why they would wait so long? "I sat there waiting for news to come on the television, but there was nothing. Why? Other divers went missing in the weeks after Alan but that was all over the news.Why "Did the Egyptians put a block on news coming out? I sat there for a full week without knowledge of what was going on. In the end I got an Egyptian interpreter and relayed directly with the police over there." Deep water searches were carried out in June and in July and no trace of Alan has been found inside the engine room of the wreck that he had been exploring with three other divers. | | Alan Costello, 52, is missing and presumed dead after a tragic wreck diving accident during a Red Sea holiday trip organized by BSAC's Northern Union dive club, which returned to the UK four days after Costello disappeared. Conclusions from the searches are that Alan, who ran Derbyshire's pharmacist in Fingerpost, is dead and missing in the waters. Tracy, who has compiled a detailed file about his disappearance and the search, now accepts this, but he will remain classed as a missing person under Egyptian law for four years unless a body is found. Tracy suspects undercurrents carried his body to a reef some miles from the Rosalie Moller. This area has not been fully explored, but it is proving difficult to demand further searches. Tracy added: "There are so many unanswered questions. But I can't seem to get help from anyone. I ask the Foreign Office and I'm just given numbers for a list of Egyptian lawyers. "Alan was a prominent man in St Helens, who was very kind. So many people and patients have been asking me what has happened. One patient went into the chemist and passed on some flowers to me. He told the staff nobody else had made him believe in himself like Alan." The Foreign Office said it could be another two months before an Egyptian police report into Alan's death is concluded. Once those findings are published Alan's family can request for the file to be sent to a coroner in the UK who could decide whether to hold an inquest, which could confirm Alan's death. A spokeswoman said the Foreign Office is in regular contact with Mrs Costello and she is being kept in informed of developments. by Andrew Kilmurray |
