Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 1st of December 2019
Case name: 2019_12_01-WM430
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to two boats in the Atlantic; one boat returned by itself to Dakhla, whilst the other was rescued to Las Palmas after more than four days at sea.
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Western Mediterranean Sea

Summary of the Case: On Sunday the 1st of December the Alarm Phone was alerted to two groups of travellers that had left from around Dakhla heading towards the Canary Islands. One group lost their orientation, and returned to Dakhla on their own. The other group was unreachable for almost five days, until we finally got a confirmation that they had been rescued by the Spanish Salvamento Maritimo (SM) and brought to Las Palmas.

At 11.09pm CET the Alarm Phone was alerted by a relative to a boat carrying 31 people, including five women and a child, which had departed from Dakhla the previous night at 10pm. For 23 hours the relative had not been able to reach the travellers. Our shift team was also never successful in establishing communication with the travellers, despite trying continuously for several days whilst the case was ongoing. At 11.40pm we called SM in Las Palmas and passed on the information we had. However, as it was night search and rescue was difficult. The following morning we spoke to SM again, and they confirmed that they would send an aircraft to the area to search for the boat. At 12.26pm we called SM again. They confirmed that their aircraft was still searching, but had no news. We stayed in contact with SM who carried out a second search operation with their aircraft the same afternoon, before pausing their efforts for the night. On the 3rd of December we were again in contact throughout the whole day with SM who searched the area by plane and with a boat. We were able to monitor the trajectory of their search and rescue vessel and aircraft online, but the day ended without any news about the whereabouts of the travellers. On the 4th of December rescue efforts continued, and at 1.35pm SM informed us that they were carrying out rescue of 25-30 travellers. Later on in the evening the relative told us that the travellers had been rescued and brought to Las Palmas.

At 11.17pm the Alarm Phone was alerted to a boat carrying 30 people, including four women, which had left from Dakhla towards the Canary Islands together with the boat mentioned above. Our shift team was also not able to reach this group of travellers, but passed on information about their distress to SM. However, at 3.25pm the following day the relative informed us that the travellers had returned safely to Dakhla by themselves.