KOTA KINABALU: The 13 people on board a fishing boat reported missing yesterday have been found safe in waters off Pulau Mantanani.
They were spotted at noon at about 25 nautical miles northwest of Pulau Mantanani.
Sabah Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) director First Admiral Mohd Zubil Mat Som confirmed this, adding the agency’s search and rescue vessel had arrived at the location at 2.30pm.
“We will escort and tow the fishing vessel back to the Sabah Fish Marketing Sdn Bhd (Safma) jetty. Everyone on board is safe,” he said, adding the vessels are expected to arrive at 9pm.
The private boat carrying three crew members and 10 anglers left the jetty on Oct 7 but failed to return at 1pm as scheduled yesterday.
It was learnt that boat owner lost communications with his crewmen in waters off Mantanani and Mengalum on Oct 8.
MMEA deployed its search and rescue team after being alerted by police last night.