A sailor from a fishing trawler fell overboard into the North Sea in high waves in the German Bight – the large-scale search for him was unsuccessful.
The crew member fell overboard into the ten-degree cold water on Wednesday night, as the German Society for the Rescue of Shipwrecked Persons (DGzRS) in Bremen announced. The sea rescue workers then began their search at the remote site of the accident, more than 110 kilometers west of the island of Heligoland.
Force nine storm
After a helicopter flew the area again at midday for around two hours without success, the search was stopped. “According to human judgment, there is no longer any hope,” said a DGzRS spokesman. According to the sea rescue workers, there is a force nine storm at the scene of the accident. The waves are four to five meters high.
The ship’s crew of the 24-meter-long fishing trawler, which included a total of eight sailors, alerted the sea rescue control center in Bremen, which coordinated the search and rescue measures. The cutter was flying the flag of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. How exactly the accident occurred is still unclear.
Large-scale search
Several sea rescue ships and helicopters then set off. The sea rescue cruisers “Hermann Rudolf Meyer” from Heligoland, the “Ernst Meier-Hedde” from Amrum and the “Theo Fischer” from Nordstrand and the “Pidder Lüng” from List on Sylt moved out. Commercial and government ships as well as a research ship and a cruise ship that were traveling in the sea area also took part in the search.
The on-site operations management initially took over the crew of a car transporter on behalf of the See rescue control center. Two rescue helicopters also took part in the search: one from the Nordholz naval aviators of the “Sea Lion” type and a search and rescue helicopter from Denmark.
According to the sea rescue workers, the crew of the cutter also helped with the search. The seafarers received an offer of psychosocial support from the seafarers’ mission.
