A search-and-rescue effort involving the Guyana Defence Force’s Coast Guard and Air Corps, the Maritime Administration Department (MARAD), other responding agencies and a fishing vessel brought 69 survivors of the MV Barima tragedy to safety by 5 am on July 19.
While the responding agencies operated under a single command, the fishing vessel joined the effort on its own initiative, rescuing 11 Barima passengers from the sea.
Working through darkness and rough Atlantic waters, responding crews searched for people adrift after the vessel sank, with Coast Guard ranks using searchlights to locate survivors and reducing engine noise to hear their cries for help.
Accounts of the rescue effort formed part of Monday’s testimony before the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (COI), as witnesses detailed the deployment of aircraft and vessels, coordinated searches at sea and the recovery of an emergency distress beacon.
Seven witnesses appeared during the day’s public hearings at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre (ACCC), bringing the number who have testified before the Commission to 21.
Cries for help guided rescuers
Petty Officer Jeromey Agard, commander of Coast Guard vessel GDFS 1034, recounted how his six-member crew rescued 26 people, including men, women and children, after reaching the search area shortly after 3 am on July 19.
Another Coast Guard vessel from the Pomeroon Floating Base was already recovering survivors when his team arrived.
Agard said his crew slowed the vessel and used a searchlight to locate people in the water. They also reduced engine noise so they could hear survivors calling out.
“With that, we would be able to hear people screaming in the water,” he testified.
Survivors were found in small groups, some clinging to wooden pallets, oil containers and life jackets. Agard said none of the 26 people his crew recovered was wearing a life jacket.
The crew used life rings and ropes to bring survivors alongside GDFS 1034 before pulling them aboard from the stern. By approximately 5 am, the team had rescued 26 people, who were subsequently transferred to a pilot vessel.
The Air Corps also deployed a Bell 407 helicopter and an Islander aircraft in successive reconnaissance flights. Major Lloyden Layne testified that he departed Eugene F. Correia International Airport in the Islander after the helicopter returned from its earlier mission.
Three MARAD vessels widened the search
Captain Anthony Williams, captain of the motor tug Arau, described how three MARAD vessels worked together to search a wider stretch of water.
Arau was the last of the three to depart Georgetown for the operation. Once in the search area, the vessels maintained approximately one to one-and-a-half nautical miles between them to widen their coverage and avoid repeatedly searching the same locations.
Williams said senior maritime officials organised the operation. During the search, crews encountered clothing, bags, cooking gas cylinders and approximately two or three empty life rafts.
Although Arau did not recover survivors, Williams confirmed that other vessels were engaged in rescue operations.
Questioned about how completed searches were recorded and communicated, he acknowledged that arrangements within the three-vessel group were informal and that the completed sweep was not reported outside the participating team.
He confirmed that Arau’s Automatic Identification System, which provides vessel-position information, was operational.
Emergency beacon recovered at sea
MARAD Marine Superintendent Christopher Bailey, Monday’s seventh witness, testified that he recovered the Barima’s Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB) while participating in the search.
Bailey said he spotted a faint light between approximately 3:30 am and 4 am on July 19. On approaching, he found the beacon floating independently of the vessel, life rafts or other debris.
“It was just afloat in the water. So, I retrieved it, brought it on board, where I kept it in my possession. When I brought it on board, it immediately deactivated,” he told the Commission.
The device was recovered approximately three to four nautical miles from the first coordinates he received during the operation.
Bailey explained that the beacon was designed to transmit distress signals and that the float-free device was most likely released from its housing when the Barima sank.
He described the beacon’s housing as a waterproof casing on the starboard side of the vessel’s wheelhouse, but could not confirm whether the recovered device was the same one he had seen during an earlier inspection of the Barima.
A photograph of the recovered beacon was presented to the commission. Bailey said he subsequently handed the device to Captain John Flores at the Marine Rescue Coordination Centre.
The five-member Commission is examining the circumstances surrounding the capsizing and sinking of the MV Barima, with a mandate to establish the facts, determine accountability and recommend reforms to strengthen maritime safety.
Public hearings are being held in the Lula Room of the ACCC at Liliendaal, Greater Georgetown.
DPI
