A Russian icebreaker, carrying 33 people on board, sent out a Mayday call during a storm off the coast of western Norway on October 22. However, Russian authorities said that the distress signal had been issued by accident.
As Reuters informs, the Norwegian Joint Rescue Coordination Centre initially reported the call from the ship, which was about 22 km off Aalesund, saying that its operation had been called off after the ship regained engine power.
Nevertheless, Russia’s sea and river transport agency noted that the Mayday call was issued by accident and the ship was not in distress. As it explained, an outage during a storm accidentally sent the signal, but the ship and the crew are fine.
Originally, the vessel reported that it lost power on all four engines, and that it was adrift in the storm.
As a result, two tugs and a Norwegian coastguard vessel were heading to the scene, but were called off, according to a rescue service spokeswoman.
