Four letters written with palm leaves on the beach have been crucial to the rescue of three sailors who were shipwrecked on a small uninhabited atoll in the Pacific.
“HELP”
(help or help in English) was the message that the rescue teams flying over the area could read from the plane. After more than a week lost, the three are safe, as reported by the United States Coast Guard.
The three sailors, all of them men in their 40s, embarked on Sunday, March 31, in the Polowat Atoll (Micronesia) in a small boat measuring about six meters equipped with an outboard motor. They had experience in navigation through the waters of that region of the Pacific.
However, they suffered a problem on the boat and were left stranded. On April 6, the Guam Joint Rescue Subcenter (JRSC) received a distress call from a relative of the three sailors reporting that their three uncles had not returned from Pikelot Atoll, Yap State, Federated States of Micronesia ), about 100 nautical miles northwest of Polowat Atoll.
Guam JRSC vigilantes immediately began coordinating a search and rescue operation. There were initial difficulties in mobilizing air assets due to lack of availability, operational commitments and weather conditions. Ultimately, the efforts led to the mobilization of a U.S. Navy P-8 crew from Kadena Air Force Base in Japan and the diversion of the Coast Guard Cutter
Oliver Henry
to the initial search area. , which spanned more than 78,000 square nautical miles.
The breakthrough came when the US Navy's P-8
Poseidon
aircraft identified the three sailors on April 7 at Pikelot Atoll, confirming their presence and status. “In a remarkable testament to their willingness to be found, the sailors wrote 'HELP' on the beach using palm leaves, a crucial factor in their discovery. This act of ingenuity was essential in guiding rescue efforts directly to their location,” Lieutenant Chelsea Garcia, search and rescue mission coordinator, said in a statement from the Coast Guard on the day they were located.
Join EL PAÍS to follow all the news and read without limits.
Subscribe
The aircraft crew successfully deployed survival packs to sustain the sailors until more help could arrive. The
Oliver Henry
was directed to Pikelot Atoll to carry out the rescue operation. The crew of the coast guard vessel met the sailors on the atoll on the morning of April 9. As requested, the vessel successfully rescued the castaways and returned them to Polowat Atoll along with her outboard.
Curiously, it is the second rescue that has occurred in similar circumstances in a few years in Pikelot. In August 2020, an SOS message written on the beach of that same Pacific micro island was key for authorities to rescue three sailors who had been shipwrecked on the journey between the Pulawat and Pulap atolls. They spent three nights and two days outdoors, but the pattern in the sand was enough for the coast guard to locate and rescue them in perfect condition.
In April 2016, three men were rescued from the small, uninhabited island of Fanadik, also in Micronesia, after their boat sank almost four kilometers from the coast. These castaways wrote a gigantic “HELP” with palm leaves and were rescued by the United States Navy three days later
In August of that same year, a couple was rescued from the desert island of East Fayu, also in Micronesia, after a US Navy aircraft that flew over the atoll read the SOS signal they had written in the sand. .