Thursday, August 13, 2009

Could Amver Help Find Missing Russian Ship?

There is a considerable amount of attention about the missing Russian cargo vessel Arctic Sea. The Maltese flagged ship is not a participant in the Amver system and Amver vessels have not been diverted to assist in the search.

The New York Times reports the ship's management believes the vessel was hijacked. CNBC reported the vessel was boarded by what appeared to be Swedish pirates. A recent European news report alludes to a possible mysterious cargo.




Amver's Role

Could Amver play a role in the search for the missing ship? Certainly. Another use of Amver is to narrow down the possible search area of a missing ship. If the Arctic Sea was an Amver participant, it would have filed a sail plan prior to departing port and its route and destination known. As the Arctic Sea submitted position reports they would have been checked against that sail plan. Once the vessel was determined to be missing, search and rescue authorities could have reviewed the last position report against the sail plan and focused search and rescue efforts in a more defined area.

Shipping companies should consider this when weighing the decision to enroll in Amver. While their ships may be called upon to assist in a distress, they may also need to use Amver data to help determine the last known position of their vessel in the event it goes missing.

Are you more likely to enroll your ship in the Amver system now?



Related articles by Zemanta
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]
at

No comments:

Post a Comment

We welcome your comments on postings at all Coast Guard sites/journals. These are sponsored by the U.S. Coast Guard to provide a forum to talk about our work providing maritime safety, security and stewardship for the American people to secure the homeland, save lives and property, protect the environment, and promote economic prosperity.

All comments submitted are moderated and will be reviewed before posting. The Coast Guard retains the discretion to determine which comments it will post and which it will not. We expect all contributors to be respectful. We will not post comments that contain personal attacks of any kind; refer to Coast Guard or other employees by name; contain offensive terms that target specific ethnic or racial groups, or vulgar language. We will also not post comments that are spam or are clearly off topic.