Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 22nd of October 2017

Case name: 2017_10_22-WM170
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to emergency situation in the Western Med
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Case: On Sunday the 22nd of October 2017, our Alarm Phone shift team was informed at 4.56am by a contact person in Morocco about a boat carrying 9 people. They had left at 9pm the evening before from Cap Spartel/Tangier and we received a phone number of one of the travellers at 5.32am. We reached the boat shortly afterwards and spoke to a man who said that their boat was still able to move on. On vessel tracking websites our shift team detected an asset of the Spanish search and rescue organisation Salvamento Maritimo heading in the direction of the boat, the location of which we had received at 6.27am. The people on the boat confirmed that they could see a vessel approaching but they could not confirm whether or not the rescue vessel had spotted them. They were also not able to see whether it was a red vessel from Salvamento or a white one from the Moroccan Navy. At 6.44am, we spoke to Salvamento Maritimo and forwarded the GPS position of the boat in distress. They confirmed that they would rescue the passengers. At 6.53am, we passed on an updated GPS position to the Spanish authorities. At 7.36am, Salvamento Maritimo confirmed to us that they had rescued the 9 people, who were then brought to Tarifa/Spain. We passed the confirmation on to our contact person. He in turn informed us at 3.28pm that he had spoken to the people and they also confirmed that they had safely arrived.