Basarnas explains why dive team has not yet been deployed in search for missing journalist

Pandeglang, Banten (ANTARA) - Basarnas has revealed the reason a diving team has not yet been deployed in the search operation for a group of journalists and the crew of the fast vessel Arupadatu I, which went missing in the Sunda Strait, Pandeglang Regency, Banten.

Head of the Banten SAR Office, Al Amrad, speaking at a press conference at the Joint SAR Main Post on Carita Beach, Pandeglang, on Tuesday evening, explained that underwater diving operations can only be carried out once the coordinates of the exact location of the object or target have been confirmed.

“The diving is carried out once we can determine the location of the target or object,” he said in response to a question from an ANTARA reporter.

Amrad emphasised that, in addition to certainty about the target’s location, the safety of personnel in the joint dive team is the primary consideration before deploying them underwater.

Field verification steps have been undertaken by the joint SAR team, which deployed a sea reader and a drone from the KN SAR Tetuka to within a 500-metre radius of the Anak Krakatau coastline to confirm reports regarding the discovery of victims, although the results so far have come to nothing.

Amrad confirmed that all sea and air assets would be optimised to narrow the search area until the exact location of the vessel and the victims can be found.

“We are doing our utmost. Of course, our anxiety remains. But I place my trust in our team on the ground. This joint SAR team, if you can verify whatever information is circulating, so that it does not become a rumour, then through the measures we carried out — entering within 500 metres of Anak Krakatau — our colleagues in the field have proven it,” said Amrad, who also serves as the SAR Mission Coordinator (SMC).