Search Operation News

One body has been recovered and two people have been rescued in a search and rescue mission after two freighters collided in the North Sea off the coast of Germany, the maritime emergency authority said on Tuesday. The Verity, which the Central Command for Maritime Emergencies said had sunk, had been on its way from Bremen to the English town of Immingham. The Polesie was sailing from Hamburg to La Coruna in Spain. It was not immediately clear what the vessels were carrying, if anything.

Since Matloob Hussain from Pakistan went missing during a deadly shipwreck off Greece last month, his brother Adil has left the door of his Athens home open in the hope he appears. It will stay open until his body is found.Matloob, 43, is among hundreds of migrants from Pakistan, Syria and Egypt who are presumed dead after their overcrowded fishing trawler, that set sail from Libya for Italy, sank off the coast of Pylos in international waters on June 14.A total of 104 men were rescued and 82 bodies were found.

Rescuers scoured seas off Greece on Thursday in a massive search operation, as hopes dwindled of finding survivors of a shipwreck that killed at least 78 migrants in one of Europe's deadliest such disasters in recent years.Reports suggested hundreds of people had packed the fishing boat that capsized and sank early on Wednesday in deep waters about 50 miles (80 km) from the southern coastal town of Pylos, while being shadowed by the Greek coast guard. As dawn broke on Thursday, a coast guard vessel sailed into the nearby port city of Kalamata, transferring victims.

A hijacked Singapore-registered oil tanker has been recovered and escorted to Abidjan port in Ivory Coast on Saturday, five days after it was captured by pirates in the Gulf of Guinea, the Ivorian military said. On Tuesday, Singapore's port authority said the [Success 9] tanker had been boarded by "unidentified persons" about 300 nautical miles (555 km) off Ivory Coast with 20 crew of various nationalities aboard. A search operation by Ivory Coast's navy backed by a French navy aircraft located the vessel on Saturday, Ivorian Armed Forces Chief of Staff Lassina Doumbia said in a statement. "As for the crew, they are safe and sound," he said.

Indonesian authorities have halted the search for 17 missing passengers from a boat that caught fire while at sea last week in East Nusa Tenggara, believing the probability of their survival to be low, a local rescue official said on Wednesday. Twenty people had been found dead during the search operation, which began after a passenger boat caught fire on waters near Timor Island on Oct. 24, the head of the local rescue team, I Putu Sudayana, told Reuters. The manifest for the trip showed there had been 177 people aboard…

The search for the Argentinian submarine was like hunting for the proverbial needle in a hay stack, except that it was a piece of straw. Elaine Maslin reports. At 7.19am, local time, on November 15, 2017, the last message was received from the San Juan submarine. She belonged to the Argentinian navy and was on a routine mission from Ushuaia in the Patagonia region to Mar del Plata in Buenos Aires province when she lost contact with the military. Fifteen days later, neither the submarine nor any debris had been found and the crew of 44 sailors were presumed dead.

French coastguards rescued 31 migrants trying to cross the English Channel overnight after the engine of one small boat cut out and the other dinghy began to take in water, local authorities in France said on Sunday.Border and coast guards in Britain and France have recently intercepted several attempted crossings, including on Dec. 26 when 49 suspected migrants were escorted to British shores after a rescue and search operation.In the early hours of Sunday, French coast guards picked up 11 migrants, including two young children, in one boat off the coast near the port city of Calais.Another 20, including a pregnant woman, were later rescued by the same patrol boat further along the French coast near Dunkirk, the local authorities said in a statement.

HM Coastguard in the UK was among the agencies joining an international search operation last night (Friday 22 November) after a superyacht sank off Indonesia.At 9.08pm Friday 22nd November, HM Coastguard in the UK received a call from the Australian maritime authority, (JRCC Australia), who had in turn received a HF DSC Distress from what initially appeared to be a UK registered vessel named Asia. Investigations started by searching all relevant databases for contact details for the vessel but the vessel was not found to be on the UK Register. Coastguard coordinators in the UK are able to monitor beacon alerts globally and had noticed that a US registered EPIRB…

Greece has rescued a 47-year old woman floating in a rubber dinghy in the Aegean Sea for nearly two days, coastguard officials said on Tuesday.The woman, holidaying on a sailboat near the Greek island of Folegandros, boarded an inflatable boat around midday on Nov. 1 to get supplies. A day later, Greek authorities were alerted that she was missing.They found her in the boat on Sunday morning some 40 nautical miles southwest of Folegandros, close to the island of Crete. Seven coastguard vessels, three private boats, a plane, and a helicopter were involved in the search operation."I was blown away, blown away in my dinghy," she said as she disembarked a coastguard vessel at the port of Iraklion…

Search teams continue to scour the Atlantic Ocean for traces of seven mariners still missing offshore tug supply vessel Bourbon Rhode, which sank near a category 4 hurricane in September, the vessels' owner said."To date, the search operations decided by the CROSS continues: the Alp Striker vessel – a 90-meter anchor handling tug supply vessel (AHTS) capable of operating over very long distances – is still surveying the area to find the missing seafarers and all merchant vessels operating in this area are mobilized to set up an appropriate watch…

Bourbon confirmed on Wednesday that the body of a fourth crew member has been recovered following the sinking of its vessel Bourbon Rhode last week. Only three of the 14 Bourbon Rhode crew members have been rescued as the search continues for seven mariners still missing.The body of the fourth mariner was discovered on Tuesday and transferred on the French Navy frigate Ventôse, Bourbon said. The bodies of three other seafarers were recovered at sea on Monday.Offshore tug supply vessel Bourbon Rhose sank in the Atlantic Ocean…

DISASTERS AT SEA is an original new docuseries that premiered last week on Discovery Canada (US viewers can check out Smithsonian Channel).Each episode tells the unimaginable true story of a maritime disaster, combining harrowing reenactments with expert analysis from marine investigators. Whether it’s survivor testimony about a sudden sound, GPS data about the ship’s speed, or the scatter pattern of wreckage at the bottom of the ocean, each piece of evidence helps investigators…

The Stellar Daisy, a massive South Korean tanker that sank in March 2017, was spotted on the floor of the South Atlantic Ocean nearly two years later.Exploration company Ocean Infinity said that it has located the wreck of the lost South Korean tanker, Stellar Daisy, at a depth of 3,461 meters in the South Atlantic Ocean, approximately 1,800 nautical miles due west of Cape Town.Stellar Daisy sank on 31 March 2017, transporting iron ore from Brazil to China. Tragically, 22 of the 24 crew were lost.Working from Seabed Constructor, the search operation involved the deployment of four Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs), which, over 72 search hours, explored approximately 1,300 km2 of seabed.

The crew of Royal Australian Navy frigate HMAS Warramunga has intercepted two vessels and seized approximately eight tonnes of hashish valued at approximately $400 million during operations in international waters of the Arabian Sea. Warramunga has now seized 19.5 tonnes of hashish and 1.5 tonnes of heroin, valued in excess of $1.43 billion* since deploying to the Middle East in November 2017. On 3 March Warramunga’s Seahawk helicopter crew detected a vessel of interest during surveillance operations. A boarding party searched the vessel, uncovering 4.1 tonnes of illicit cargo. The Seahawk crew then detected a second vessel of interest and the subsequent boarding and search operation resulted in the seizure of an additional 3.9 tonnes of illegal narcotics.

The body of the missing crew member was located by the Department of Fire and Emergency Services (DFES) Dauphin helicopter at 12.30 pm AWST yesterday, and recovered by Fremantle Water Police. AMSA detected a distress beacon at 11.45 pm AWST last night (23 February 2018) which was registered to the 15 metre yacht Finistere with six people on board. The yacht’s crew were participating in the Bunbury and Return Ocean Race. Attempts to contact the yacht directly via radio were unsuccessful and the yacht’s tracker failed to update at 12 am AWST. AMSA advised the Fremantle Water Police of the incident and tasked the DFES RAC Rescue helicopter 652. The helicopter arrived on scene at 12.30 am AWST and sighted an overturned yacht in the water.

The French coastguard on Tuesday searched for Pierre Agnes, the chief executive of U.S. surfwear retailer Boardriders Inc, after his 36-foot (10.97 m) sailboat was found washed up on the country's Atlantic coast. Rescuers were scouring the Bay of Biscay waters off Hossegor, a surfing resort from where the 54-year-old Agnes set sail early in the morning, the Landes prefecture said. Agnes sent a message to port authorities indicating that he was delaying his return because of thick fog. His beached boat was later found empty not far from Hossegor. "An air and sea search operation is underway," the Landes prefecture said in a statement, adding that two helicopters and two boats were involved in the rescue operation.

The Indian Navy launched a massive search operation for a Mexican lady cadet who reportedly fell overboard from the Mexican sail training ship STS Cuahtemoc off Goa, on June 11. "Indian Navy has launched a “Search & Rescue” operation to look for a lady cadet who has reportedly fallen overboard from Mexican Sail Training Ship (STS) Cuauhtemoc, at 1400 hrs on 11 June 2017 in position about 560 Nm west of Goa," said a statement from the Navy. It has been reported that the lady cadet was not donning life saving gear when she fell overboard. Promptly responding to the alert, Boeing P8I aircraft sorties were undertaken from 2100 hrs -  2300 hrs and 0630 hrs – 1030 hrs on 11 June 2017 and 12 June 2017 respectively for SAR.

A boat carrying 31 people, including 28 Chinese tourists, is missing off the coast of Borneo, Malaysian maritime authorities said on Sunday. The boat left Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Malaysia's eastern Sabah state, at about 9 a.m. (0100 GMT) on Saturday bound for the popular tourist spot of Mengalum island, officials said. It was reported missing at about 9.50 p.m. after failing to arrive at the island and a search operation was launched soon after, Sabah and Labuan Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) deputy director Rahim Ramli said. Bad weather was hampering the search effort, which covers an area of about 400 nautical square miles. "We are looking at strong winds and choppy waters," he said.

The search for the missing Dornier aircraft of Indian Coast Guard and its three crew members is being augmented with underwater search by naval submarine, reports All India Radio. After six days of efforts to trace the missing Coast Guard Dornier aircraft, all eyes are now on the Navy submarine that started the undersea search operation for the plane. There were reports that wreckage of the Dornier aircraft was found but Coast Guard Eastern region Inspector General Commander S P Sharma later denied the reports. “We are awaiting communication from the submarine. At this point, we can’t come to any conclusion,” said Sharma in a statement.

The death toll from a wooden boat that capsized last week with Indonesian migrant workers off Malaysia's west coast has risen to 61, reports Reuters. Another 20 Indonesians have been rescued. Malaysian maritime official Mohamad Hambali Yaakup says rescuers have retrieved the bodies of 37 men, 23 women and that of a young girl. "The latest findings bring the number of victims closer to the earlier target of about 70 to 80 passengers. Even though it is approaching the target total, the operation center will remain open until further instructions," he said. The overcrowded wooden boat capsized and sank in rough seas about 16 kilometres (10 miles) off the coast of central Malaysia's Selangor state before dawn on Thursday.

NTSB Issues Update on Investigation Into Sinking of Cargo Ship El Faro. On February 13, 2015, El Faro successfully completed the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) class and statutory surveys, meeting all rules and regulations as applicable. All deficiencies identified were rectified prior to completion of the surveys. None of the deficiencies were associated with El Faro’s main propulsion systems. The annual inspection of El Faro, required by the United States Coast Guard (USCG), was completed by qualified USCG inspectors in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on March 6, 2015. In June 2015, a qualified ABS surveyor examined and tested the main, auxiliary and emergency systems as part of the continuous machinery survey program and found them to be satisfactory.

Greek coast guard searching for 38 migrants off Lesbos. Four children, two men and one woman drowned and 38 migrants were missing after their wooden boat sank north of the Greek island of Lesbos, the coast guard said on Thursday, as an extensive search operation continued for a second day. The coast guard rescued 242 people off Lesbos on Wednesday in what was thought to be the largest maritime disaster off Greece in terms of numbers involved since a massive refugee influx began this year. The search went on overnight. Four coast guard vessels were deployed on Thursday, assisted by fishing boats. Three helicopters were hovering above the sea.

Sweden military has confirmed it held a second “secret” search operation for a foreign submarine in its waters back in October for a suspected underwater intruder in the Stockholm archipelago. The hunt, not reported until now, followed a report in Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter claims about a sighting of a submarine tower outside Stockholm. A submarine-hunting corvette, HMS Malmö, was secretly deployed in the waters between Lidingö Island in the inner Stockholm archipelago and Nacka Municipality on October 31. This was just a week after Swedish armed forces called off the search for the suspected submarine first reported on October 16. On Sunday, a military spokesman Jesper Tengroth confirmed that the Navy searched waters near the capital on Oct.