Watch The Med Alarm Phone Investigations – 29th of September 2017

Case name: 2017_09_29-AEG307
Situation: Alarm Phone in contact with 43 travellers who reached the Greek island of Lesvos independently
Status of WTM Investigation: Concluded
Place of Incident: Aegean Sea

Summary of the Case: On Friday the 29th of September 2017 at 1am, a contact person provided the Alarm Phone with a phone number of travellers in distress in the Aegean Sea. At 1.07am, we were able to reach the travellers by phone. They had left the Turkish coast one hour earlier and were heading in the direction of the Greek island of Lesvos, but they were unable to provide us with their current GPS position. They could see the castle of Mytilini on the island and estimated that they were about 3km off the coast. They were panicking, shouting that they were drowning and that the weather was horrible. We promised to immediately alert the Greek coast guard and to call them back afterwards. At 1.11am, we forwarded all information we had received so far to the Greek Rescue Coordination Centre in Piraeus. At 1.33am, we managed to reach the travellers again. They informed us that there were 43 travellers on board, that they had lights on the boat and that they were still moving towards the island of Lesvos. We told them in turn that the Greek coastguard was looking for them and asked them to stay calm as soon as rescue arrives. In another call with the Greek coastguard at 1.41am, we learned that it might become difficult for the patrol boat to find the travellers in distress, if they were not in possession of their GPS coordinates. However, both the coastguard and we were not able to reach the travellers anymore at that time. At 2.12am, the contact person provided us with two further phone numbers, that we also forwarded to the coast guard at 2.30am. Afterwards, we were not able to reach any of the travellers’ numbers anymore, but at 3.50am, the coast guard informed us that the local port authorities had found and rescued the travellers and that they were all in good condition. At 11.50am of the same day, we wrote a WhatsApp message to the travellers and asked for confirmation of their rescue. At 12.10am, the replied and told us that they had reached the island of Lesvos independently and had not been rescued by the coast guard. They arrived at the beach themselves, went to a street and called the police. They were all in Lesvos now and everyone was fine, they said.