Netflix crew’s “whole boat exploded” after back-to-back shark attacks in Hawaii: “Like something out of ‘Jaws'”

Netflix seems to have gotten its own real-life “Jaws” remake. A crew for the streaming service that was filming in Hawaii recently experienced back-to-back encounters with tiger sharks that resulted in one “exploded” boat and an emergency landing. 

The crew was filming for the Netflix docu-series “Our Planet II,” narrated by British biologist Sir David Attenborough. Huw Cordey, one of the show’s producers, told Forbes that at one point, the team was following a Laysan albatross chick in Hawaii to see how the “longest-lived birds” journey around the planet. They wanted to do an underwater shoot around the Hawaiian island of Laysan where they could film tiger sharks waiting in the shallows as albatross chick spend the first months of their lives learning how to fly.

“But the first day the tiger sharks were around, the crew got into these inflatable boats – and two sharks attacked them,” Cordey said. “It was like something out of ‘Jaws.’ The crew was panicked, and basically made an emergency landing on the sand.” 

Toby Nowlan, a producer and director for the show’s first and third episodes, also spoke of the ordeal. He told Radio Times that when the crew was in the inflatable boats, there was suddenly a “v” of water that “came streaming towards us.” 

“This tiger shark leapt at the boat and bit huge holes in it,” he said. “The whole boat exploded. We were trying to get it away and it wasn’t having any of it. It was horrific. That was the second shark that day to attack us.” 

Nowlan said that the crew was only about 328 feet from the shore, so they were able to make it safely to land, though barely. On land, they then patched the boat and deployed a rubber dinghy – but that was attacked by giant travallies, marine fishes that can grow to be up to 6 feet long and weigh more than 100 pounds. That attack knocked out the dinghy’s motor. 

The behavior of the sharks they encountered was “extremely unusual,” Nowlan told Radio Times. 

“They were incredibly hungry, so there might not have been enough natural food and they were just trying anything they came across in the water,” he said. 

“Our Planet II,” was released on Netflix on June 14, and contains four episodes that are about 50 minutes each. Each episode follows animal populations as they continue to navigate an ever-changing planet, including humpback whales, polar bears, bees, sea turtles and gray whales.

Despite the “horrific” circumstances of the crew’s experience with tiger sharks in Hawaii, shark attacks remain rare. Kayleigh Grant, the founder of Kaimana Ocean Safari in Hawaii, previously told CBS News that people “shouldn’t be scared of sharks.” 

“Sharks are not out to get us. They are not like what has been portrayed in ‘Jaws,'” Grant said, adding that the animals are “really misunderstood.” 

“…They’re not the enemy. They’re something that we should be working with to help keep the ecosystem healthy and in balance.”

Wildlife conservationist Jeff Corwin has also told CBS News that sharks are indicators of healthy ecosystems, and that while it’s the unwanted encounters with them that make headlines, they are typically all around people with them not even knowing it.  

“The truth is — when you’re in the water, if you’re in a healthy marine ecosystem…you’re often never more than 100 yards from a shark,” Corwin said. “…In places in the world — marine environments where we see collapse — often the first thing we see is a disappearance of their apex predator, which are sharks. … They’ve been on our planet for 100 million years. It tells us something’s awry when we lose our sharks.”