Video: Containership Evacuated After Listing and Losing Boxes
A smaller container ship anchored off Taiwan’s Kaohsiung port is listed and was evacuated today. The port authority temporarily closed the port as salvage teams were working to stabilize the vessel and retrieve containers that have fallen into the ocean.
The Angel is a 21-year-old containership that arrived in Taiwan on July 4 from Dalian, China. Registered in Palau, the vessel is 20,000 dwt and has a capacity of 1,262 TEU. The ship is anchored 2.8 nautical miles outside Kaohsiung harbor with reports that it was loaded with empties and awaiting orders.
This morning, July 20, the master of the containership issued a distress message to the Kaohsiung Harbor Bureau reporting that the vessel had assumed an 8- to 9-degree list to port. At least six containers had gone overboard with the master reporting ingress of water into the hull. Some reports are suggesting that there is a crack in the hull.
The master reported that he had decided to abandon the ship ordering the 19 crew into lifeboats. The Coast Guard sent two patrol boats to assist and transfer the crew to shore. Later tugs were dispatched. Authorities ordered the port entrance near the vessel closed while they were working on a salvage plan.
The ship, which is 564 feet in length, is reported to be loaded with nearly 500 tons of low sulfur fuel and light diesel. The authorities ordered two containment booms strung around the ship fearing that it might begin leaking oil. Reports said that the authorities had blocked a plan to tow the ship to Cijin Shoal fearing it would leak oil or further lose stability.
Salvage crew are working to restore stability to the vessel while local news reports are saying that the vessel had begun listing at the beginning of the week. Residents told reporters they had been watching the ship as the list increased day by day.
The ownership of the vessel is reported in the Equasis database as Navramar Shipping which acquired the ship in May 2023. Management is listed as being located in Azerbaijan. Equasis shows the vessel’s class as unknown and reports it was removed from the Indian registry and by DNV as of the beginning of June. Further, the database does not list a Port State inspection since 2018.
Video: Malaysia Searches for Crew After Cargo Ship Capsizes
The Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) is searching for nine missing crewmembers from a small cargo ship operating inter-island while also requesting assistance from neighboring countries. The vessel was located on Thursday overturned and floating near the southern end of the busy Malacca Strait.
According to the report, the Malaysian authorities were contacted when the ship’s operator was unable to contact the ship and reported that it could not be traced. The MMEA dispatched a patrol boat to the area to begin the search retracting the route of the vessel, the Tung Sung.
The Tung Sung, registered in Malaysia, is reported to be approximately 184 feet in length. It was sailing with a crew of nine including four from Malaysia, four from Myanmar, and one from Indonesia, ranging in age between 20 and 52.
The last AIS signal showed the vessel departing the island of Borneo near the Malaysian city of Kuching. The vessel was heading north into the Malacca Strait to Tanjung on the west side of Malaysia north of Kuala Lumpur.
At midday, they were informed that the vessel had capsized and the MMEA sent its fast response boat as well as air assets from the Royal Malaysian Police Aire Movement Team. They located the Tung Sung approximately four nautical miles Northwest of Burung Island near the southern tip of Malaysia and west of Singapore.
As of nightfall on Thursday no sign had been found of any of the crewmembers. The search was suspended overnight and resuming on Friday morning. The search area has been expanded to encompass over 210 square nautical miles.
U.S. Air Force, Good Samaritan Ship Save Missing Fishermen in Micronesia
The U.S. Coast Guard is the primary provider of long-range search and rescue for a vast swath of the Pacific Ocean, and it routinely helps Pacific Island nations to save lost fishermen and citizens at sea - with a little help from other armed forces and from merchant shipping.
On July 12, the Coast Guard station on Guam received a forwarded request for help from the American embassy in Pohnpei, one of the states of Micronesia. Two fisherman had gone missing near Nukuoro Atoll, and they were two days overdue.
The vast expanse of the Pacific makes SAR operations particularly demanding, and a combination of aviation and surface assets are required to carry the mission out. Nukuoro is a case in point: the remote atoll is 300 nm away from Pohnpei and 900 nm from Guam. It is isolated enough that the small population has developed its own language, and its only connection to the outside world is a monthly passenger vessel service.
Since U.S. Coast Guard Sector Guam does not have long-range aircraft of its own, it reached out to Sector Honolulu, which dispatched an HC-130J SAR aircraft on the 3,500 nautical mile flight from Air Station Barbers Point to Guam. The U.S. Air Force also pitched in with the services of four C-17 Globemaster cargo aircraft, which added a search pattern onto their departure flights from Guam.
The next morning, one of these aircrews spotted the missing fishermen at a position about 10 nm to the south of the atoll. The Coast Guard checked the AMVER system to see if there might be a participating merchant ship nearby, and it contacted the passing reefer Sea Pearl I. The vessel agreed to divert to rescue the two missing fishermen, and it confirmed later that day that it had picked them up safely.
"Operating in the expansive Pacific region with limited resources poses unique challenges. Recognizing the immense value of commercial mariners in supporting search and rescue efforts, particularly in the vast expanse of the Pacific, we extend our appreciation to these merchant mariners who are willing to divert and rescue others at sea," said Capt. Nick Simmons, commander of U.S. Coast Guard Forces Micronesia/Sector Guam.
It was the second U.S. Coast Guard-enabled rescue in the expanse of the Central Pacific in a week. On July 10, the service worked with the armed forces of Canada and France to find and rescue a missing fishing boat with 11 passengers in the Northern Mariana Islands, just north of Guam.
U.S. Air Force Pararescue Team Saves Fisherman 1,000 Miles off Costa Rica
Last week, a team of Air National Guard pararescuemen saved an injured fisherman at a position about 1,000 nautical miles off the coast of Costa Rica.
On July 7, the Costa Rican fishing boat Victoria G sent a distress call and requested medical aid. A crewmember had sustained serious cuts to the head after being struck by a metal pole when a pulley snapped. He was suffering from loss of consciousness, blood loss, and vomiting from the head injuries.
The U.S. Coast Guard's 11th District took the call, but the remote location and the victim's serious condition required special response capabilities. The nearest good samaritan vessel was about 250 nautical miles away.
11th District passed the request over to the 129th Rescue Wing at Moffett Air National Guard Base, which accepted it and got under way. The next morning, an Air Force HC-130 Combat King II with a Guardian Angel pararescue team took off from Moffett, bound for Mexico City. After a refueling stop, they flew south to rendezvous with the Victoria G. There were several challenges - overcoming a language barrier, finding the fishing boat in the dark, and safely executing the jump.
Image courtesy USAF
"The seriousness of the young patient's injuries was in the back of our minds the whole time we were weighing the risks of jumping a team in at night into such a remote location," said the mission's jump master. "We had to assume his injuries were possibly life-threatening or could lead to permanent neurological damage if left untreated."
An aircrew member handled translation, and after communicating with another boat in the same area, the flight crew found the Victoria G. The pararescue team parachuted into the Pacific Ocean with their supplies, and they safely boarded the vessel. They stayed aboard to assess the patient's condition and provide treatment.
Several days later, they rendezvoused with a larger good samaritan ship, the Royal Midori, which took the Air Force team and the victim aboard. The Midori transferred them to Puntarenaas, Costa Rica.
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