Mass Rescue at Night
You are an officer cadet on the bridge of an AFM offshore patrol vessel at 22:40, 18 nautical miles south of Malta. You have located a 10-metre wooden boat with about 55 people on board, including women and children. The boat is taking water and has no lights. Sea state 5, wind 25 knots, visibility 2 nautical miles. The Maritime Squadron operations room orders you to take all persons on board and to proceed to the nearest safe port. One person on the migrant boat is shouting and appears to be holding a knife; two others are trying to jump into the water. Your boarding team has four personnel; the vessel has a rigid-hulled inflatable boat but the sea is rough. A merchant ship is 8 nautical miles away and offers assistance. A local NGO asks for the vessel's position.
1. What are your priorities and immediate actions?
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The overriding obligation is safety of life at sea. Immediate priorities are: prevent the boat from capsizing or being lost; establish communication and calm; prepare for mass rescue; and avoid putting the boarding team at unnecessary risk.
Actions: keep the patrol vessel upwind and at a safe distance to provide a lee; illuminate the boat; broadcast in the migrants' likely language that they must stay seated and that help is coming; throw lifebuoys and lines to anyone in the water; prepare the RHIB with a lifejacket-equipped crew, but launch only if the sea state allows a safe recovery; brief the boarding team on the knife, the numbers and the triage plan; inform the operations room of the situation and request the merchant ship to stand by as a lee or receiving platform if needed; prepare medical triage, blankets and a secure area on board. Do not attempt to take 55 people alongside in a rough sea without a plan for capsize, injury and separation of families.
2. How do you handle the person with the knife and the two people trying to jump?
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The person with the knife is a threat but not necessarily an attacker. The response is containment and communication: keep distance, use cover, designate one person to talk calmly, avoid a crowd closing in, and do not use force except in self-defence or to prevent imminent serious harm. If the person can be isolated from the others, that reduces the risk. The two people jumping are a different problem: throw lifebuoys and lines immediately, position the RHIB to recover them if safe, and prepare for hypothermia. Do not let the rescue turn into a struggle that capsizes the boat.
Use minimum force, record everything, and hand the knife incident to the police on arrival. The reasoning is that the priority is the safety of 55 people, not the immediate arrest of one; a confrontation on a crowded, sinking boat could cause mass casualties. If the knife holder threatens others directly, the boarding team may need to restrain him, but that decision must be proportionate and documented.
3. The NGO asks for the vessel's position. What do you tell them and why?
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I would not release the precise position directly from the bridge. I would say: 'We are responding to a vessel in distress. Please pass your offer of assistance to the Maritime Squadron operations room, which is coordinating the rescue.' Reason: the operations room is the single point of coordination and can verify the NGO's capability, task it safely and avoid a clash of vessels in rough seas. Precise positions can also attract uncoordinated craft, compromise the rescue and create a security risk for the people on board. If the NGO is a recognised rescue organisation and the operations room agrees, the position can be passed through the proper channel. The humanitarian impulse to share information is understandable, but the correct principle is coordinated rescue, not open broadcasting.