Movers Denizcilik Ticaret A.Ş made a new statement about the situation of the 4th engineer named Yiğit Acar, who joined the ship in Suez port of Egypt.
It has been determined that Yiğit Acar, who joined the ship “MV Dema M” in Movers Denizcilik, as the 4th engineer on 05.09.2022, was missing at around 20:30 on 07.09.2022 and could not be found despite all the searches on the ship.
The emergency team was immediately gathered, the entire ship was searched in detail with the participation of all the personnel on board, and the search and rescue activities were started by turning back on the same route until 14:30, the time when the relevant personnel were last seen.
Search and rescue activities are managed by the search and rescue coordination center of the country (Egypt) where the incident took place, as per the legislation, and it is also an international activity. As a matter of fact, an emergency coded “MOB” notification was made simultaneously to the Ankara MRCC (Search and Rescue Center) – Flag State (Liberia) and the official authorities of Egypt, and MOB warnings were issued to the surrounding ships, and they were asked to watch carefully and support search activities in the region.
Upon this request, an individual and international search and rescue activity was initiated very quickly.
Egypt MRCC not only provided information to other ships in the vicinity for search and rescue activities, but also included 2 ships in the operation and ensured general coordination.
These ships and their participation periods are as follows;
“Mv Budapest express, start-finish 08.09.2022 1006lt – 1308ltMt NS Champion; start-end 08.09.2022 1020lt – 1925lt”
However, since the incident was in the open sea, no personnel or helicopter etc. assistance could be provided by the authorized Egyptian State. Thereupon, upon the necessity of conducting the search more effectively and upon our request, a note was given to the Egyptian authorities through our Ankara Main Search and Rescue Center of the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure and the Embassy of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Cairo, and it was requested to support the search and rescue activities from the air.
All these comprehensive search and rescue activities have taken a total of 93.5 hours from the moment the incident was noticed. International legislation stipulates this call duration as 72 hours.
Despite all our searches and efforts, unfortunately, our staff member Yiğit Acar could not be reached. Now that the amount of fuel on the ship has dropped to a critical level, our related ship is moving towards the discharge port.
This situation was reported to both Ankara and Egypt Search and Rescue Centers, and it was strongly requested that the search and rescue efforts not be stopped/continued.
In addition, the highest level of cooperation and assistance is provided with all official and 3rd parties in order to investigate the incident as legally correct. This issue is being investigated by both the flag (State of Liberia) and the Republic of Turkey.
In order to make the necessary determination of how the incident took place, the official investigation continues and all kinds of information, documents, assistance, etc. It is shared with all official authorities so that we can do what is necessary without exception.
As Movers Shipping, we deeply regret that the search operation, which has been carried out with individual and superhuman efforts since the detection of the incident, did not result in the way we hoped, but we will follow up with the hope that both Turkey and Egypt, the field state, will continue the work as necessary, We present to the public that we will continue to do whatever we can, keeping our hopes for these efforts to achieve a result that pleases us all. (Movers Shipping Trade Inc.)
The opinions expressed herein are the author’s and not necessarily those of News2Sea.