Phuket fishing crew missing since last month
Crew members of a fishing boat in Phuket have been missing since last month. The boat, named Soi Sakun Petch, was captained by Roong Luekamwong and had three other crew members on board, including one Thai national and two Myanmar nationals.
According to the Royal Thai Navy Third Area Command, the boat had set out to fish in the Southwest of Phuket on January 19 but has since been out of contact. The cause of the boat’s disappearance is believed to be a broken engine, causing it to float away to sea.
In an effort to locate the missing crew, the Royal Thai Navy (RTN) launched a massive search operation, combining marine and air searches, and has also reached out to authorities in Malaysia and Indonesia in case the boat has entered their territorial waters.
The news of the missing fishing boat came to light after the captain’s family reached out to the media for any updates, The Phuket Express reported.
Just last month, another fishing boat sank in South Thailand. The trawler sank in the Gulf of Thailand about 18.2 nautical miles off the coast of Pak Phanang district in Nakhon Si Thammarat province. Fortunately, marine police were able to rescue the trawler’s five crew members, safely bringing them back to the shore.
Also last month, huge waves capsized a tugboat off Koh Pha Ngan, tossing all the crew members overboard into the swelling seas. The crew of the “PL Arthena” tugboat were rescued nearly 10 hours after their vessel was knocked over by heavy waves. Rescuers worked for around an hour, but the sailors aboard the oil tanker managed to pull every single member of the tugboat crew out of the stormy, windy ocean.
The crew of the oil tanker then got in touch with the RTN to request assistance in getting the tugboat sailors safely back to land.
