Several resources were used yesterday to save two people on a “high-risk mission” off the island of Porto Santo.
According to the Portuguese Air Force, which provided support in the operation, the strong sea disturbances put “the success of the operation into question”.
It all happened after the alert from the Lisbon Maritime Search and Rescue Coordination Center (MRCC Lisboa), at 7:22 pm, to the existence of a vessel, a semi-rigid vessel, “completely adrift, without communications, without energy and without propulsion”, which it was approximately 107 km from Porto Santo Island, and had two crew members on board that needed to be rescued.
An Air Force C-295M aircraft was immediately activated, permanently deployed at Maneuver Aerodrome No. 3, Porto Santo, to carry out searches and visual reconnaissance of the vessel near the last known position. At the same time, two merchant ships sailing nearby were sent to the location to carry out the rescue as soon as the vessel was found.
Already in the operations area, an hour and a half after activation, the Air Force crew spotted the vessel, in an action made difficult by the small size of the semi-rigid vessel due to the state of the sea. After establishing visual contact and assessing the condition of the vessel, the crew of Air Force Squadron 502 guided the nearest merchant ship, the Panamanian-flagged ‘MV RICCA’, to the rescue area.
“The volume of the remarkable ship that would carry out the rescue, measuring around 190 meters compared to the vessel where the two people to be rescued were, the rough sea and the darkness of the day made it difficult to guide and position the two vessels , making the rescue an extremely complex but successful mission, with the two people being recovered at 10:40 pm”, informs the military force.