Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations - 13th of February 2018

Case name: 2018_02_13-AEG336
Situation: Alarm Phone alerted to 50 people in distress near Kos, rescued to Greece
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Case: On Tuesday, the 13th of February 2018 at 5.12am, a contact person alerted the Alarm Phone to a boat in distress with 50 travellers on board, whose engine had stopped near the Greek island of Kos. He forwarded their GPS and phone number to us and we immediately tried to call them, but without success. At 5.28am, we informed the Greek coastguard in Piraeus, who already knew about the boat and had a patrol boat in this area. At 5.49am, our contact person sent us a photo from the boat, on which the Greek rescue vessel could be seen. At 5.54am, the travellers directly sent us a voice message, informing us that the rescue vessel had took them in tow, but they were fearing to be transferred to another Turkish boat. At 6.01am, we received an updated position of the boat, in it seemed that they were brought to the port of the Greek island of Kos. At about 7pm in the early evening, we finally received a confirmation directly from the travellers that their boat had indeed been brought to the island of Kos and that all travellers have been rescued.