Netflix documentary crew attacked by ‘incredibly hungry’ sharks in Hawaii

A Netflix docuseries crew had a “horrific” encounter with 15-foot-long “incredibly hungry” tiger sharks while filming on the waters of the Pacific Ocean north of Hawaii.

During the shooting of the four-part climate documentary series Our Planet II, the crew members had a close call with the sharks that ended up bitting huge holes in their inflatable boats, the show’s director, Toby Nowlan, told British magazine Radio Times.

The Emmy Award-winning team for the series narrated by Sir David Attenborough were collecting underwater shots of whales near Laysan – one of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands – when they were attacked by the sharks.

Mr Nowlan said the sharks’ behaviour was “extremely unusual” and they looked “incredibly hungry”.

“This ’v’ of water came streaming towards us and this tiger shark leapt at the boat and bit huge holes in it. The whole boat exploded,” Mr Nowlan said.

“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.”

Fortunately, the team was about 100m from land and they were able to reach the shore before the boat fully deflated, he said.

“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.

Series producer Huw Cordey told Forbes that there were two sharks that attacked them.

“It was like something out of Jaws,” he said. “The crew was panicked, and basically made an emergency landing on the sand.”

He said the original idea was to do an underwater shoot with the tiger sharks waiting in the shallows at Laysan, one of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

“Suffice to say, they didn’t get any underwater shots,” Mr Cordey said.