Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 26th of September 2017

Case name: 2017_09_26-CM116
Situation: Alarm Phone directly called by 6 people on fishing boat coming from Zuwarah, Libya, rescued to Italy
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Central Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Case: On Tuesday the 26th of September 2017, at 7.53am, the Alarm Phone was directly called by six travellers on board of a small vessel in the Central Mediterranean Sea. They had left from Zuwarah/Libya at about 1am and were not in immediate distress. We provided them with the phone number of the Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) and they intended to call the Italian coast guard by themselves. In the following hours, we stayed in contact with them and learned at 9.22am, that they had encountered the Italian vessel Vos Thalassa, without being rescued. At 10am, we recharged their satellite phone’s credit and at 10.30am, the travellers forwarded their latest position, which showed them heading in the direction of Lampedusa/Italy. At 10.56am, the travellers informed us that they had called the Italian MRCC on their own and provided them with their position. At 11.30am, we forwarded all the information we had received so far to the Italian MRCC, both via phone and, later on, via email. Afterwards, we tried to get in touch with the travellers again throughout the day, but were not able to reach them anymore. However, at 4.37pm, we received the information from a contact person, that the travellers might have been rescued. For the rest of the day, we tried to receive a confirmation of the rescue operation from the MRCC. But only on the next day, the Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre confirmed to us that all travellers on this boat had indeed been rescued.