Details of USS Elrod rescue emerge

A US Navy frigate rescued 16 Pakistani mariners stranded in a life raft near the wreckage of their fishing vessel.

USS ELROD: A US Navy frigate, USS Elrod (FFG 55), rescued 16 Pakistani mariners stranded in a life raft near the wreckage of their fishing vessel 144 miles west of Socotra Island off the Horn of Africa on July 5, according to a press release by the US embassy on Wednesday.

The Pakistani fishing boat, Al Anwari had pulled into a port in Yemen on June 29 for repairs and returned to sea on July 1, only to sink a day later on July 2, due to cracks in the hull.

The crew was drifting at sea in a life raft for more than 48 hours before the frigate rescued them.

According to the press release, a US Navy P-3C Orion aircraft spotted the life raft during a routine patrol in support of the counter-piracy task force Combined Task Force (CTF) 151.

USS Elrod, the nearest vessel with search and rescue (SAR) capabilities, dispatched an SH-60B Sea Hawk helicopter to conduct SAR operations while the Elrod was en route to the mariners’ location. The helicopter crew rescued 12 men by air, while a rigid-hull inflatable boat picked up the remaining four men, the press release stated.

Once the survivors were aboard Elrod, interpreters confirmed that all crew members had been rescued and the medical team assessed them to be in good health.

Elrod transferred the Pakistani nationals to the Pakistani Navy destroyer PNS Babur on July 6 to be taken home. PNS Babur is in the region conducting counter-piracy operations in support of CTF-151.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 8^th, 2010.