Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations - 13th of August 2015

Case name: 2015_08_13-AEG41
Situation: Two vessels in Turkish waters, both rescued
Status of WTM Investigations: Concluded
Place of Incidents: Aegean Sea

Summary of the case: On Thursday the 13th of August 2015, at approximately 3.15am, we received a distress call from a vessel in the Aegean Sea. They told us that they had left Izmir/Turkey about an hour earlier. Shortly afterwards they called again. Despite very difficult communications due to loud background noises, we understood that Turkish authorities were already in vicinity so that their rescue can be presumed.
At 4.15am, we received a second call from Turkey. This time a group was in distress somewhere between Bodrum/Turkey and Kos/Greece. Our contact person told us that there was a group of 40 people, including women and children. Following his account they were already close to Greece. We then reached out to the Greek coastguards who stated that they had several ongoing emergency cases so that we should tell the travellers to call the international emergency number 112. At about 5.05am, our contact person passed on further details: the engine had stopped working and they had left Bodrum already around midnight. Shortly afterwards our Farsi-speaking Alarm Phone member was able to reach the travellers themselves. They were unable to pass on coordinates as their smart phones had run out of battery. We passed the phone number of the Greek coastguards on to them. At 5.50am they told us that they had been able to find their GPS position and had passed it on to the Turkish coastguards who said that they would come for rescue. For many hours no further information could be obtained until, at 11.44am, our contact person confirmed that they had been rescued by Turkey and returned there.