Four sailors drown in rough seas

The bodies of four men were recovered by a Royal Navy battleship about 140 miles to the east of Malta yesterday morning after their ship sent out a distress call in rough seas the previous night.

The search for another three crew members of the Honduras-registered cargo ship Vigla, which has not been found, was set to continue this morning, the AFM said last night.

The AFM Rescue Coordination Centre received a distress call from the 3,000-ton vessel with seven persons aboard just before 11 p.m. on Wednesday. At that time the wind was blowing at Force 8 strength.

The centre immediately instructed Malta Radio to inform all ships in the area. Four merchant ships responded to the call and changed direction to head for the incident location, the AFM said.

On reaching it, two of the ships reported sighting three white lights afloat and remained in position to keep them in sight.

The RN battleship HMS Nottingham, which was located about 100 miles from the last known position of the Vigla, also sped to the area and its Lynx helicopter flew to the scene. It remained there for 30 minutes before returning to the ship.

The AFM said HMS Nottingham arrived in the area at 5 a.m. yesterday and launched a boat which picked up two dead men and an empty life belt.

A US Navy P-3 Orion plane and an Italian military helicopter joined the search effort after daybreak.

At about noon, the HMS Nottingham recovered another two dead men and an empty life raft capable of carrying 10 to 12 people. The dead men were found not more than four miles from the Vigla's last known position, the AFM said.

Merchant vessels also found debris and oil in the area.

The search effort was suspended last night and was due to continue this morning.