Amateur vision has captured the moment frantic tourist where jumping ship as a dive boat began sinking off the coast of Phuket, Thailand.

THE first thing you notice is the screams - loud and piercing - the people are clearly terrified.

Men and women scramble, some even jump, off a sinking ship. It looks like a movie ... but it's real life.

This dramatic footage from 29 January shows a dive boat in Similan Islands, Phuket sinking, and passengers frantically jumping off the boat, clearly scared for their lives.

No-one died in the ordeal, but the question is - why did it happen?

The dive boat, Aladdin, had 13 people on board and was not registered and was operating near the park illegally, according to park officials at Phuketwan. The vessel was cruising between Bon Island and Tachai Island when the wooden hull of the boat was punctured causing the boat to tip.

The Director of the Similan islands national park, Nat Kongkasem, said that both the islands were part of the national park, but that the Aladdin sank between the islands in a location that was not part of the national park. "The vessel operates out of Ranong,'' he said. ''It was not registered to operate in the national park and the hull was clearly of poor quality," he told Phuketwan.

Fortunately for the people on-board the Aladdin, another vessel, Phuket-based Peter Pan, was close by and able to rescue all the passengers.

It is believed the vessel Aladdin, based in Ranong, a Thai port on the border with Myanmar, was on a four-day live-aboard adventure.

The manager or Aladdin Dive Safari, who asked to be identified as only Frank, told Phuket Gazette that there will be no salvage possibility.

Frank told Phuket Gazette that the accident had nothing to do with the boat. "We got a rope in the propeller that actually broke the propeller off, not all the way, but that's why water came inside the boat. There was a boat not too far away, all the people were saved. Everybody is fine 'people-wise'. It's just a loss on our side that the boat is gone, everything."