Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 3rd of June 2018

Case name: 2018_06_03-WM248
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 3rd of June 2018, at 7.18am, our Alarm Phone shift team was alerted to a distress case by a relative of someone who had taken to the sea. The boat had started in the night from Morocco, close to Cap Spartel. We reached the travellers directly at 7.25am and they told us that there were 4 people on board.

At 7.45am, we spoke to the Spanish search and rescue organisation Salvamento Maritimo (SM) and they confirmed that they had received information about this boat. We informed the boat-people that SM had been informed at 7.55am. At 8.25am, the boat-people seemed more anxious and they asked us to inform the Moroccan authorities, which we did at 8.30am. At 8.35am, the boat-people told us that their situation was very urgent. At 9.24am, the boat-people informed us that they could see a container vessel nearby and earlier a navy vessel had passed by them. They said that they would die if rescue did not come soon. We ask them again to send their GPS coordinates, which they managed to do at 9.43am. We passed their location on to SM five minutes later.

At 10am, the boat-people could see a helicopter and half an hour later they could see a fishing-boat. At 10.39am, MRCC Rabat confirmed that they were still searching for them. Over the next hours, we spoke regularly to the boat-people and updated the authorities on their situation which was deteriorating, with one person in critical condition. Still at 1.52pm, SM was not able to locate the boat although they had been searching. At 2.22pm MRCC Rabat sent us an email, confirming that they had rescued the people.