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A survivor of the Marchioness boat disaster has slammed EastEnders for a 'copycat' boat party scene in its 35th anniversary episode.

Next Monday the BBC are broadcasting a special anniversary episode that will see several of the characters attend a boat party on the River Thames. 

The episode is expected to end in disaster, with at least one person dying. 

But a survivor of the Marchioness Riverboat Disaster of 1989 has hit out at bosses for filming scenes almost exactly where the doomed pleasure boat sank 30 years ago.

Mark Brewer-Sage, 46, who is the youngest passenger to have emerged from the crash alive, told The Sun the trailer that sees the cast sail under Southwark Bridge gave him 'major anxiety'.

Crew are pictured filming scenes for EastEnders' 35th anniversary episode, which will see cast go to a Thames boat party 

Cast members are pictured filming scenes for next Monday's 35th anniversary episode on a boat on the River Thames 

Wreckage: The shell of the Marchioness is pictured on the Thames after the crash in 1989 

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He told the newspaper: 'I don't see this as a coincidence. They could have shot on any of the other bridges. This has been deliberately copied.

'The writers and execs need to be brought to task. Shame on you. It's so close to the bone.'

BBC bosses insisted the scenes were not filmed near Southwark Bridge. 

Fifty-one young people died when the pleasure boat Marchioness collided with a dredger called the Bowbelle and sank in central London in the early hours of August 20 1989. 

A 30th anniversary memorial service was held on the banks of the Thames near the crash site last summer. 

The Marchioness boat disaster on the River Thames in 1989 resulted in the deaths of 51 people

Odette Penwarden, 72, of east London, spoke about how she survived the sinking.

'The dancing was in full swing when all of a sudden the boat lurched. The boat started to tip over. Water came rushing in and knocked me off my feet. It was like going inside a washing machine.

'I could feel myself losing consciousness, but I had an image of my mother and I decided I needed to get myself out.'

Ms Penwarden managed to escape through a broken window and was rescued by a police boat.

Next Monday's dramatic episode will see Phil Mitchell in a dramatic showdown with his younger love rival Keanu Taylor over the affair with his wife Sharon. 

Eastenders would not confirm if it had contact representatives of the Marchioness survivors for research purposes.  

A spokesman said in a statement: 'EastEnders is a fictional drama and isn't based on any real life events. We always carefully consider the content of our episodes.' 

Kellie Bright and Danny Dyer are pictured with fellow EastEnders cast members on the banks of the Thames in a promotional shot for the 35th anniversary boat party episode 

Marchioness Disaster: The night 51 were killed when Thames party boat crashed into dredger  

Fifty-one people died when the Marchioness pleasure steamer crashed into the Bowbelle dredger near Southwark Bridge on the River Thames in the early hours of August 20 1989.

There were 131 people on board celebrating the 26th birthday of a Cambridge graduate turned merchant banker Antonio De Vasconcellos. 

Many of the victims became entangled in the wreckage before drowning.   

On August 19, the Marchioness had done a normal day's work, taking sightseers down the Thames as far as Greenwich to see the landmarks of the historic riverfront.

But in the evening, it was hired out for Mr De Vasconcellos's party.   

According to the dry narrative report of the Chief Inspector of Marine Accidents, the Marchioness was hit by the Bowbelle at 1.46am on August 20. 

With 127 passengers and four crew, the party boat had just cleared Southwark Bridge.

The Bowbelle was behind the Marchioness, with both boats adjusting their course to stay in the centre of the river to go under Cannon Street Railway Bridge. 

Somehow they converged, although crew members on the party boat had already seen the dredger coming up behind them and assumed it was going to overtake.

The dredger had passed a similar party boat, the Hurlingham, a few hundred yards upstream. At eight-and-a-half knots, the dredger was moving twice as fast as either of the pleasure cruisers.

Two crewmen stationed on the bow of the dredger failed to see the Marchioness ahead, and the skipper of the Bowbelle, Douglas Henderson, was not at the helm. 

He was later criticised for having drunk six pints of beer on the afternoon of the day of the accident.

As the collision became inevitable, at least one deckhand on the Marchioness shouted a warning to his skipper Stephen Faldo, who died in the accident. 

Faldo applied full throttle to try to escape the bigger boat - to no avail.

The Bowbelle weighed 1,880 tonnes and was more than 260ft in length. The Marchioness was just 85ft long, and weighed only 46 tonnes.

The dredger's iron hull swept the party boat's wooden superstructure aside, crushing the Marchioness with such force that her upper deck separated from the hull.

In the aftermath of the tragedgy, there was outrage among victims' families when it emerged their hands had been chopped off during the identification process. 

Officials said the amputations were necessary because the bodies had been underwater for days and had disintegrated, which made fingerprinting incredibly difficult. 

They said sending the severed hands to be sent to an off-site laboratory was the best hope of getting an accurate result.  

Meanwhile, relatives were barred from viewing their dead loved ones, with the authorities arguing they were protecting them from further grief over the state of their bodies. 

A 1991 report by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch said poor lookouts on both the Marchioness and the dredger were the cause of the crash.

Ten years later, in his 2001 report, Lord Justice Clarke reached the same conclusion following a public inquiry. 

During those 10 years the captain of the Bowbelle, Douglas Henderson, was acquitted of any criminal charges in two separate trials.   

An inquest reached a verdict of unlawful killing, but in 1996 the Crown Prosecution Service ruled there was not enough evidence to proceed with criminal charges against those involved. 

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