SENEFAND UNO

General information

Course/Position

Latest news

Search for missing crew members abandoned

On Feb 23 the "Senefand II" abandoned the search for the missing crew members of the "Senefand I" and returned to operate off the coast of Senegal. During the last two weeks, the company has worked intensively with the search units of the different administrations to try to recover the missing crew members, one Spanish citizen and two Senegalese, but unfortunately there was no success.

Search for missing crew members still on

The "Senefand Dos", a twin of the "Senefand Uno" which has sunk a week ago in Senegal waters, continued to comb the area where the wreck occurred trying to locate the three missing sailors. One of them is the master, Vicente Pazos, native of Marín, the other two, the oiler and a deckhand, were of Senegalese nationality. The search area was located between 30 and 35 miles southwest of Dakar and had an extension of about three miles. According to the testimony of the chief engineer, Fernando Argibay (one of the eight survivors), the 52 year old master was inside the wheelhouse at the time of the sinking. The water depth at the sinking site was about 650 meters. The owner, the PRofand Grooup, was working to get an oceanographic vessel equipped with multibeam and side-scan sonar in order to locate the wreck. The "Senefand Uno", when recovering the fishing gear, quickly listed to starboard due to the excessive weight of the catch and was unable to regain stability in spite of the attempts of Vicente Pazos to avoid the sinking by maneuvering from the bridge, precious time to save the life of eight crew members.

Search area widened

The search area for the three crew members who were missing since the sinking of the "Senefand 1" off the coast of Senegal has expanded. The maritime and air assets - both Spanish and Senegalese - participating in the search operation, which have been joined by several fishing vessels and merchant ships, were now tracking a strip located further north than first was supposed as the place where the shipwreck occurred. The location of the vessel, where the skipper, José Vicente Pazos, and the two Senegalese crewmen could have been trapped, did not seem an easy task, since at the time of the accident the radiobeacon was not activated.