Search And Rescue News

Three bodies have been located inside the wreck of Borr Drilling's Prospector 5 jack-up rig, which sank offshore Gabon on October 24, with search and rescue operations continuing for two people still missing.The bodies were discovered during underwater inspections using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV), Vice-Admiral Charles Hubert Bekale-Meyong, chief of staff of the Gabonese Navy and commander of the search-and-rescue operation, confirmed in an October 28 statement.The images obtained did not allow the bodies to be identified…

Borr Drilling's Prospector 5 jack-up rig has sunk offshore Gabon after experiencing a punch-through event during preload operations that caused it to lose stability, leaving five people missing and 110 safely accounted for among the 115 personnel on board.In its latest update on October 26, Borr Drilling said extensive marine and air search and rescue operations were continuing for the five missing individuals, while the 110 personnel accounted for were being brought ashore in Gabon…

Twelve migrants drowned in two separate incidents off the Greek islands of Lesbos and Samos in the northeastern Aegean Sea on Monday, after their boats capsized as the coast guard chased them, authorities said.Five men and one woman died after a speedboat carrying migrants from Turkey made a sudden manoeuvre and overturned roughly four nautical miles north of Samos, the Greek coast guard said.Fourteen men survived and a search-and-rescue operation was under way. Authorities arrested one of the survivors…

Rescuers were searching for seven missing crew on Thursday from one of two chemical tankers that caught fire overnight inside Romanian territorial waters in the Black Sea, after Russian drones strayed into Romanian airspace, Romanian officials said.Romanian officials stopped short of explicitly linking the fires onboard the ships to the Russian drones. But the incidents follow drone strikes on at least five other cargo ships near the coasts of Romania and neighbouring fellow NATO member Bulgaria over the past 10 days.

Eleven sailors were missing at sea on Tuesday from a ship sunk by a drone attack off the coast of Bulgaria, possibly the second deadly sinking of a cargo vessel in the area in a week, prompting Bulgaria to summon Russia's ambassador.Two cargo ships were hit by drones overnight and one was sunk, Bulgarian officials said. Bulgaria stopped short of explicitly accusing Russia of carrying out the attacks but Prime Minister Rumen Radev said their outcome "benefits the Russian Federation".There…

Bulgaria has halted its search for the missing crew of a ship that sank after being hit by a drone about 70 nautical miles (130 km) off its coast, Vice-Admiral Rumen Nikolov of the Maritime Administration Executive Agency said on Wednesday.Early on Tuesday, two ships were hit in a drone attack in Bulgaria's Black Sea exclusive economic zone. One sank and the other was damaged. The crew of the damaged ship were rescued, but the crew of the sunken one remain missing.Nikolov said 12 crew members were believed to have been on board the ship which sank, all of them from Syria.

Two people have died and 11 crew members have been rescued after the Royad Mammadov cargo ship sank in the Black Sea, Romanian authorities reported, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the vessel had been struck by Russian drones.The incident occurred on October 5 in Romania's exclusive economic zone, about 30 nautical miles south of Sfântu Gheorghe and outside the country's territorial waters, according to Romania's Ministry of Internal Affairs.Zelenskyy said the vessel was carrying corn in neutral waters when it was sunk by Russian drones.

The death toll from an Indonesian ship that capsized more than two weeks ago rose to 71on Monday, as divers braved leaking fuel and dangerously unsound structures to try to find passengers still listed as missing.The Virgo Transport 8 ferry was carrying 243 people when it capsized in bad weather in the Java Sea on September 13 during a voyage from Surabaya in East Java to Banjarmasin in South Kalimantan. Authorities said 108 people survived.Divers were navigating through unstable debris on the 16th day of the search…

The official death toll from a passenger ship that capsized and sank in Indonesia's Java Sea rose to 26 on Wednesday, up from the previous 20, with rescuers expecting to find more bodies as the ongoing underwater search widens, officials said.The Virgo Transport 8 ferry was carrying 243 people, including 30 crew members, as well as an unknown number of vehicles, when it capsized in bad weather early on September 13 during a voyage from Surabaya in East Java to Banjarmasin in South Kalimantan.Coast guard and Navy personnel recovered 14 bodies from inside the ship over the past three days…

All 25 crew members of the Liberia-registered container vessel MSC HERMES III were rescued after abandoning the ship in a lifeboat about 300 km east of Vietnam, Singapore's Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) said.MRCC Singapore received a distress alert at about 8:45 a.m. Singapore time on September 22 while the vessel was within Singapore's Maritime Search and Rescue Region.It immediately broadcast a request for nearby vessels to provide assistance, with three vessels responding.MSC RUBY subsequently recovered all 25 crew members from the lifeboat.

Oman's Maritime Security Centre said on Tuesday that the Panama-flagged oil tanker 'EL GAIA' was being towed to an Omani port after a fire broke out in its engine room following an attack.The tanker was about 103 nautical miles northeast of Musandam when it was attacked, the centre said. An Omani naval vessel evacuated 23 crew members, while two remain missing.(Reuters - Reporting by Jana Choukeir and Tala Ramadan; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

At least eight people died and 18 were missing after a ferry carrying around 270 passengers and crew capsized off North Cyprus on Sunday, leaving survivors clinging to its overturned hull.The privately owned ferry left the port of Kyrenia at 12:30 p.m. local time (0930 GMT) and immediately started taking on water for an unknown reason, authorities said. It was heading for the Turkish port of Tasucu in the eastern Mediterranean.Survivors reported the ferry moving erratically, with its last hard impact with the water's surface breaking the bow of the two-hulled vessel, allowing water to seep in.

Rescuers were searching on Sunday for 17 people still missing after a Vietnamese ship sank in the busy waterway of the South China Sea, while 45 have been pulled from the waters since Saturday night, China's state broadcaster CCTV said.Chinese authorities said the cargo vessel Khoi Nguyen 18, with 62 Vietnamese nationals aboard, ran into distress in waters near Fiery Cross Reef, CCTV added.A distress flare from the vessel was first spotted by a Chinese rescue ship, the Nanhai Jiu 115…

Dozens of people were feared dead after a ferry carrying 133 people capsized off the coast of Guyana late on Saturday, with authorities suggesting an inaccurate passenger list and drug use by the crew might have contributed to the situation.No survivors have been found since Sunday afternoon, when Guyanese authorities announced they had rescued 67 people, including 15 children.The captain and other crew members are now in police custody, Public Works Minister Juan Edghill said at a press conference late on Sunday."Search and rescue is still in progress," Edghill said.

A bulk carrier managed by Wallem Group has rescued two Filipino fishermen from a sinking fishing boat near the Babuyan Islands off the Philippines while on a voyage from Australia to Vietnam.The vessel was carrying 80,000 tonnes of coal from Abbot Point, Australia, to Cam Pha, Vietnam when the crew spotted a distressed fishing boat at about 08:35 local time in May.According to Wallem, the fishermen were waving for assistance as their vessel encountered difficulties.Under the direction of the ship's master, the bulk carrier stopped and launched its rescue boat.

Damen Shipyards Antalya hosted a kick-off meeting attended by delegations from the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM), the Turkish Coast Guard (TURCG) Command, Presidency of Migration Management (PMM), the European Union Delegation, the Netherlands Embassy in Türkiye, and Damen Shipyards Group. The meeting marks the recent contract signing between Damen and the IOM for the delivery of thirteen Search and Rescue (SAR) 1906 vessels to be operated by the Turkish Coast Guard…

Four people died after a small boat carrying migrants seeking to reach Britain sank in the Channel and a search and rescue operation was underway, French local authorities said on Thursday."A taxi-boat sinking occurred today. The situation is still being assessed and remains subject to change," local French authorities in Calais said in a press statement.In the past year, traffickers have taken to motoring dinghies along stretches of the northern French and Belgian coasts picking migrants up along the shore.

The United States Coast Guard (USCG) has rescued a family of three who had been missing for seven days in waters off the Federated States of Micronesia.The crew of the USCGC Midgett located the family on April 6 after authorities reported the vessel overdue following its departure from Fananu Island on March 30.The 23-foot skiff, carrying two men and one woman, had suffered an engine failure during what was intended to be a short journey to Murillo Island, the Coast Guard said.The search area expanded to more than 14…

A U.S. submarine sank an Iranian warship off the southern coast of Sri Lanka, killing dozens of sailors and dramatically widening Washington's pursuit of the Iranian navy.Sri Lanka's deputy foreign minister identified the warship as the frigate IRIS Dena, and said it was heading back to Iran from an eastern Indian port.The attack happened hundreds of miles across the Indian Ocean from the Gulf, where U.S. and Israeli forces are striking Iran and Tehran is retaliating with missile and drone attacks."An American submarine sank an Iranian warship that thought it was safe in international waters…

One person was presumed dead and five crew members reported missing on Sunday after a tug boat sank off South Africa's southern coast, a multi-agency maritime body said.The tug vessel LEO transmitted a distress message at 1702 GMT on Saturday, reporting uncontrolled water ingress and requesting immediate assistance, South African Search and Rescue (SASAR) said in a statement.The ship sank in the early hours of Sunday, approximately 80 nautical miles south of Mossel Bay in South Africa's Western Cape province."To date, 13 crew members have been accounted for, consisting of 12 survivors, and one

The U.S. Coast Guard coordinated the rescue of 27 mariners on Saturday after their Venezuelan-flagged fishing vessel caught fire approximately 500 miles north-northwest of the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador.At 3:51 p.m. PST, Saturday, Rescue Coordination Center Alameda received a notification from the Garmin Search and Rescue Command Center of an SOS distress alert from the 240-foot fishing vessel La Pena.Using a crewmember’s satellite messaging device, Coast Guard watchstanders established communications with the crew and confirmed the vessel had caught fire and sank.

US Coast Guard Sector San Juan Command Center watchstanders and the crew of the Horten Liberian-flagged tanker rescued a capsized rower in the Atlantic Ocean east of Puerto Rico, Wednesday night.Benoit Bourguet, 47, was in his single-man rowing vessel, City of Liverpool, which was reportedly struck by two rogue waves and capsized in 13 to 15-foot seas which forced Bourguet to deploy and board his life raft.Bourguet and the City of Liverpool vessel were competing in the World’s Toughest Row Race, a 3,000-mile rowing race from San Sebastian de la Gomera, Spain, to Nelson’s Dockyard in Antigua.

Nearly 12 years after Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 vanished with 239 people on board, the mystery remains unresolved. Later this month, a new seabed search is scheduled to begin in the southern Indian Ocean, renewing hopes that long-awaited answers may finally emerge.The Boeing 777 disappeared on March 8, 2014, while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The passengers included more than 150 Chinese nationals, around 50 Malaysians, and citizens from several other countries, including France, Australia, the United States, India, Canada and Ukraine.