Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 6th of February 2016

Case name: 2016_02_06-WM79
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to boat in distress in the Western Mediterranean Sea
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Cases: On Saturday the 6th of February 2016, at 1.30pm, the Alarm Phone was informed about a boat that had left from Tangier/Morocco the day before, carrying 7 people. They were in a situation of distress and had already reached out to the Spanish search and rescue agency Salvamento Maritimo (SM). At 1.35pm, we reached the travellers but the phone connection was bad and no further information could be gathered. We informed SM about this case at 1.50pm and they confirmed that they had been searching for this vessel the day before with a plane, a helicopter and a vessel. They had also been in direct contact with the travellers but then decided to conclude the search at 9.30pm the day before as they thought that the vessel was still in Moroccan waters. In the following hours we tried but were unable to reconnect to the group on the boat. Shortly after midnight, we learned that two of the travellers may have died. At 00.55am we received the information that the group had been rescued but that 2 people had died. SM told us at 1.05am that they had been told that the Moroccan Navy had rescued that vessel in the afternoon the day before. 5 people were found alive, one person had died and another one had gone missing. We tried to gain more information about the case but so far we were unable to reach the travellers or the contact person.