AFRICAN CARDINAL

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Latest news

Missing crew member declared dead

After three months of searching for the Singaporean national Muhammad Furqan Mohamed Rashid, 25, who fell from the 'African Cardinal' in USA waters on June 20, the U.S. Coast Guard has formally presumed the man dead on Sep 29. Rashid, held a Diploma in Nautical Sciences from the Singapore Polytechnic. During his military service, he was a naval firefighter with the Singapore Civil Defense Force. He then joined his current company, Apex Ship Management, as a deck officer and was a deck officer II before the incident.He was attending a junior deck officer course in the United States and was working on board the ship when the incident occurred. He was reportedly on deck getting ready to exercise when he fell into the ocean as the merchant’s vessel travelled about 22 kilometres from the Californian coast. The warden of the merchant ship immediately called for help and lowered the life buoy in an unsuccessful attempt to rescue him. The ship then turned around to look for him and notified the U.S. Coast Guard. The authority quickly deployed its team to conduct a 15-hour search and rescue operation involving sea and air routes. The team dispatched helicopters; the search and rescue range exceeded 200 nautical miles. The team only found life buoys and suspended the search after the arduous 15 hours it had spent covering 370 kilometres to find the man. The family hopes to receive a formal report from the U.S. Coast Guard as soon as possible to get long-awaited answers and better understand what may have happened.

Search for missing crew member suspended

The U.S. Coast Guard suspended its active search for a crew member who went over board 14 miles southwest of Point Conception from the 'African Cardinal' in the night of June 20, 2023. Coast Guard crews searched by air and sea for nearly 15 hours, covering more than 200 square nautical miles in an attempt to find the man in the Santa Barbara Channel Traffic Separation Scheme. The Coast Guard’s Long Beach Command Center received a report at approximately 5 a.m that the crew member had gone overboard The center’s watchstanders immediately issued an urgent marine information broadcast, stating the nature of the situation. A rescue helicopter took off from Forward Operating Base Point Mugu, a small boat crew departed from Coast Guard Station Channel Islands and the Coast Guard Cutter Robert Ward was diverted to search for the crew member. The 'African Cardinal', en route from Shanghai, had an ETA at Long Beach as of June 21.