The U.S. Naval Forces Central Command’s (NAVCENT) command center answered a distress call from the owner of the Indian-flagged merchant vessel Kayana, after the ship sank off the coast of Somalia, June 22. Lt. j.g. Brad Fancher, NAVCENT’s watch commander at the time, received the call. He then set in motion the chain of events that led to the safe rescue of Kayana’s 18 crew members. “I called the Rescue Coordination Center [RCC] in Falmouth, England, because they coordinate most rescue operations around the world,” said Fancher, a native of Lumberton, Texas. After the vessel sank, Kayana’s crew members were stranded on a solitary lifeboat. However it, too, began to sink, making efforts to retrieve the crew even more urgent.