The Guyana Defence Force (GDF) Coast Guard was alerted at 10:51 p.m. on July 18 to a distress signal from the MV Barima, but the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority’s (GCAA) Director of Air Navigation Services, Rickford Samaroo, learnt of the emergency only around 1 a.m. the following day, the Commission of Inquiry (COI) into the ferry disaster heard on Wednesday.
The testimony of Samaroo and Aeronautical Information Service officer Tia Valenzuela also revealed that the vessel’s emergency beacon was unregistered, meaning its identification code could not be matched to records containing information about the vessel, its owner and emergency contacts.
Valenzuela, who was on duty when the first distress message arrived at approximately 10:43 p.m., told the Commission that she sent the alert information to the Coast Guard through WhatsApp at 10:51 p.m. She received a response one minute later, at 10:52 p.m.
Samaroo, however, said he was not immediately notified because GCAA procedures required staff to alert him promptly to distress signals involving aircraft, but did not impose the same requirement for maritime emergencies.
He testified that he learnt of the incident when the GCAA Director General called him around 1 a.m. on July 19, advising that a vessel might be in distress and that two aircraft had been authorised to investigate. Samaroo subsequently contacted the control tower, where he learnt that distress messages had been received from the United States Mission Control Centre.
According to the briefing he later received, the Maritime Administration Department, the Coast Guard and the lighthouse had been notified within five minutes of the initial alert. The Commission has requested the relevant standard operating procedures and full communications records to establish how the alerts were handled.
Unregistered beacon
Samaroo confirmed that the emergency beacon aboard the MV Barima was not registered. The device, known as an Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB), transmits distress signals through the international Cospas-Sarsat satellite search-and-rescue system.
Registration links a beacon’s unique identification code to details such as the vessel’s identity, owner, emergency contacts and intended voyage. An unregistered beacon can still transmit a distress signal and location coordinates, but authorities cannot retrieve the associated registration information to help identify the vessel or contact people familiar with its movements.
Valenzuela testified that, after hearing a continuous beeping sound from the distress-message mailbox at about 10:43 p.m., she checked the system and identified the message as a maritime distress alert.
“When the beeping was received, I checked the system and I saw it was a distress alert message,” she told the Commission.
She said she plotted the coordinates and checked whether the beacon had a registered owner before forwarding the information through established communication channels. Because the beacon was unregistered, she could not identify an owner to obtain additional information.
Further distress messages arrived with additional coordinates, and Valenzuela said she also had to report the receipt and transmission times to the US Mission Control Centre.
The Commission, chaired by Justice Godfrey Smith, is examining the circumstances surrounding the MV Barima’s sinking on July 18 while travelling from Georgetown to Port Kaituma in Region One. Its mandate includes investigating the vessel’s seaworthiness and maintenance, passenger boarding and loading, crew competence, and the adequacy of search-and-rescue operations.
The inquiry will also determine whether negligence, misconduct or failures to follow applicable procedures contributed to the disaster. More than 100 witnesses are expected to testify, and the Commission’s original two-month timeline has been extended to six months.
