Taiwanese Fishing Vessel Grounds in Batanes

Taiwanese fishing vessel FV Jui Fa Tsai with five crew composed of two Taiwanese and three Indonesian nationals ran aground at vicinity 16 nautical miles Northeast off Itbayat Island, Batanes on April 1, 2014 at 6:50 a.m.

Immediately, Coast Guard District North Eastern Luzon was alerted and directed to dispatch a Search and Rescue Team to render necessary assistance. A Notice to All Mariners (NOTAM) was also issued to all ships/watercrafts transiting within the area of incident to be on the look-out for possible sightings of the aground foreign vessel and to render necessary assistance.

PCG Batanes immediately sent a SAR team in the area while Taiwan Coast Guard immediately coordinated with PCG and DFA for the dispatch of TCG vessel for SAR operations.

At 3:39 p.m. yesterday, the crew of the aground vessel were successfully rescued and the vessel was extracted from its grounding position. Rescued crewmembers were brought back to Taiwan in good physical condition.