Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 11th of October 2018

Case name: 2018_10_11-WM344
Situation: One boat from Tangier returned by own forces, 2 people died, one boat from Assilah rescued to Spain
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Case:

On Thursday 11th October, the Alarm Phone was alerted to two boats in the Western Mediterranean. One boat was rescued by Spain. One boat eventually had to return to the Moroccan shore on its own, after an 20 hours odyssey, having been neglected by both Spanish and Moroccan authorities.

Case 1: At 8:48am CEST we were alerted to a boat in the Strait of Gibraltar, carrying 11 persons, among them one woman. They had left the night before at 11pm local time from Cap Spartel. During the next hours, we tried to establish a direct connection to the boat.
At 11:40am we nevertheless informed the Spanish rescue authority Salvamento Marítimo about the boat. At 12:00am we also tried to reach MRCC Rabat, as the people then were more than 12 hours already on the water, We reached the MRCC Rabat only at 12:20am that promised to inform the Marine Royale and to check on rescue operations of the night before in the respective area. We established contact to a relative of one person on board, that called us at 12:33am and informed us that the travellers had just called and would still be at sea in a critical condition. At 12:45am we reached the boat ourselves, but the connection broke soon, At 12:47am we alerted Salvamento and informed them that the boat was still at sea. We couldn’t reach the boat anymore. At 1:07pm we sent an email to the Spanish rescue authority with all information. At 2:20pm the relative called us. He had been called by the boat again and they were in immediate need of assistance. At 2:24pm we sent an email to SM asking to send a helicopter in order to localize the boat in distress. At 3:15pm we called Salvamento. They told us they coud only send a helicopter if the MRCC Rabat would ask them for assistance. At 3:30pm we called MRCC Rabat, but they told us that Salvamento would have to ask them first if they could send an aircraft. We hence called SM again to facilitate the engagement of a helicopter and also sent emails to both Spanish and Moroccan authorities, but neither Spain nor Morocco did eventually engage in coordinating the helicopter SAR. In the meantime, we stayed in contact with the relatives and tried continuously to call the travellers. We continued to call SM Tarifa, MRCC Madrid and MRCC Rabat but no assistance was sent to the boat. The next morning we tried to research what had happened to the boat, but only at 9:40am we reached a contact person that informed us that he had been called by the relative. The boat had reached the Moroccan shore by own forces at 7pm, but two people had died during the 20 hours odyssey. We confirmed this information directly with the relative of one of the travellers.

Case 2: At 11:45am we were alerted to a boat in distress that had left from Assilah, carrying around 38 people, among them 11 women and 3 children. We continuously tried to reach the boat and to find out other numbers on board, but we couldn’t establish a direct connection to the travellers. At 2:54pm a local contact confirmed that the people had been rescued by Salvamento Maritimo to Spain. We could confirm the definite safe arrival at 00:25am the next night, when the travellers contacted us directly to report their rescue.