Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 02nd of October 2019

Case name: 2019_10_02-CM199
Situation: 61 travellers rescued to Lampedusa, Italy
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean

Summary of the Case:
On 2nd of October at 14:30 CEST a boat in distress, already located in Malta SAR zone, contacted us. On board there were 60 travellers, including 2 women - one of them was pregnant, the other one with a baby. They stated to have left Zuwarah, Libya the day before in the afternoon. We were also informed that water was entering the boat. At 14:42 CEST we alerted Italian authorities which refered us to RCC Malta which we phoned at 14:49 CEST. At 16:16 CEST the travellers called us again. They said the situation was critical. We informed RCC Malta about it at 16:21 CEST. They refused to confirm whether a SAR operation has been launched or not. We demanded immediate action! Especially because the next day strong winds and waves were expected. At 17:42 CEST we spoke to the travellers. They told us that they called RCC Malta which informed them about a rescue vessel on the move. One hour later the travellers informed us about navigation problems. And we received a new GPS position which we transferred to MRCC Rome at 19:02 CEST. Same happened at aroun 21:00 CEST and 22:16 CEST. The last call to the travellers ended with only one half of a proper position. We nevertheless informed authorities about it. Later on we couldn‘t establish contact to the boat anymore but tried to confirm the rescue with Lampedusa port authority. After midnight we learned that the 61 people reached Lampedusa nearly by their own and have been rescued by Italian Coastguard.