Diving Team Not Yet Deployed to Search for 5 Missing Journalists and 3 Boat Crew, Basarnas Explains Why

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 speedboat Arupadatu I, which went missing in the Sunda Strait, Pandeglang Regency, Banten.

Head of the Banten SAR Office Al Amrad explained that underwater diving can only be carried out once the coordinates of the exact location of the object or target have been confirmed.

“(Diving) is carried out when we can already determine the location of the target or object,” he said in response to questions from an ANTARA reporter.

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

Rather than undertaking speculative dives, he continued, the joint SAR team, on this eighth day of operations, is still prioritising surface sweeps of the sea and direct verification of every piece of location information circulating among local residents, fishermen and social media.

The joint SAR team demonstrated this field verification effort by deploying a sea reader and drone from KN SAR Tetuka up to a radius of 500 metres from the coast of Anak Krakatau to confirm the truth of reports concerning the discovery of victims, although the results so far have yielded nothing.

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

“We are doing our utmost. Of course, we remain anxious as well. But I entrust this to our team in the field. This joint SAR team — if they can verify whatever information is circulating so that it does not remain mere rumour — then that is how we proved it (entering within 500 metres of Anak Krakatau), which was carried out by our colleagues in the field,” said Amrad, who also serves as the SAR Mission Coordinator (SMC).