Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 9th of December 2015

Case name: 2015_12_09-CM52
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to boat in distress in the Central Mediterranean Sea, rescue confirmed
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Case: On Wednesday the 9th of December 2015 the Alarm Phone received a message from Father Mussie Zerai, alerting us to a boat with 92 travellers in distress in the Central Mediterranean Sea 90 kilometres north-west off the Libyan coastal city Misrata. Beyond that, he forwarded their GPS coordinates and a satellite phone numbers to us. Father Zerai had already informed the Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre in Rome, thus we only sent an e-mail to the Italian coastguard. Between 7am and 4pm we regularly tried to call the travellers, but direct contact could not be established. However, we checked the satellite phone’s credit periodically and saw that the travellers regularly used the phone, because their credit decreased from time to time. At 9.20am we charged their Thuraya account with 20 credits, but after midday the credit did not change anymore. At 3.15pm we found a Twitter Tweet of the Italian Marina Militare, stating that the Italian navy vessel Cigala Fulgosi had rescued 91 travellers, a number that fits to the boat we were alerted to. Only on the next day the Italian coastguard informed Father Mussie Zerai that the boat had indeed been rescued.