The Croatian authorities are using EMSA’s Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) to boost their coast guard functions, as to monitor vessel traffic, conduct search and rescue procedures and detection and monitoring of marine pollution.
According to the Standard Club, because of the calmer, summer seas of the Mediterranean, conditions are more favourable for migrants to depart Libya in unseaworthy vessels, aspiring to reach Europe. Commercial vessels sailing through the waters around Libya, Tunisia and Malta are most likely to receive a distress call from these ships or be requested by the coast guard of any of those States to help.
The Maltese-flagged cruise ship ‘Marella Discovery’ picked up a total of 111 people, including 33 children, from a migrant boat while sailing off Greece’s Peloponnese peninsula, in the early morning hours of Sunday, the Hellenic Coastguard informed.
Two men have been safely rescued after their fishing vessel caught fire off the coast of Land’s End, on 16 July. Falmouth Coastguard received multiple 999 calls reporting a vessel on fire, in the early afternoon hours of Tuesday.
The US Coast Guard Alaska issued a statement on a missing person after an explosion and subsequent fire at Delong Dock in Whittier, Alaska, according to which they suspend the search on the missing person. The Coast Guard reported that the fire allegedly occurred on a fixed barge and then spread to the pier and then to the fishing vessel.
According to the US Coast Guard’s statement, they suspended their search for the missing crewmember, on July 7, who fell from the Carnival Victory cruise ship. The USCG members searched for 45 hours, about 2,600 square nautical miles, but weren’t able to detect the crewmember.
Just before 8.30pm Tuesday, HM Coastguard received a VHF radio broadcast from a fishing vessel with six people onboard 70nm north east of Stornoway, reporting that one of their crewmen had sustained a hand injury. The Stornoway coastguard helicopter flew to the scene and winched the fisherman.
A fishing vessel sank during bad weather on July 3, off Honduras’s northern coast. At least 27 fishermen lost their lives, according to Honduras’s military. In addition, nine people are still missing, while 55 others have been rescued. Commenting on the incident, Jose Domingo Meza, a spokesperson for the military, noted that the vessel’s Capt. Waly started sailing during inappropriate weather for fishing.
In the latest Safety Digest, the UK MAIB published a maritime incident, according to which a skipper and its fellow crew decided to anchore after many days of fishing. Yet, the vessel started sinking rapidly. A possible factor that caused the incident is fatigue, as all members of the vessel worked long hours.
The Captain of the migrant rescue ship ‘Sea-Watch 3’, carrying about 42 survivors, entered Italian territorial waters citing the desperate situation of the people onboard and defying a stringent domestic law that has closed borders to migrants.
