Missing 'pirate' cargo ship spotted

Aug 14 2009

A missing cargo ship whose last known radio contact was with British Coastguards has been sighted off the west African coast, according to a Russian news agency.

The Maltese-flagged Arctic Sea, whose disappearance has sparked international search efforts, was spotted north-west of the Cape Verde islands, said Itar-Tass.

The 4,000-tonne vessel with a 15-strong Russian crew disappeared after its last official recorded positioning off northern France on July 30.

Reports from Itar-Tass and Financial Times Deutschland, citing unidentified sources, reported the ship near the Cape Verde islands.

Numerous theories have been put forward to explain the vessel's disappearance, ranging from it being boarded by pirates to a commercial dispute. The ship made routine radio contact with Dover Coastguard as it was about to enter the Strait of Dover from the North Sea at 1.52pm on July 28.

Days later Interpol informed the British Coastguard that the ship had been hijacked days before in the Baltic Sea. According to reports, it was boarded by up to 10 armed men purporting to be anti-drugs police on July 24.

Some 12 hours later, the intruders apparently left the ship on a high-speed inflatable boat and allowed the vessel to continue on its passage but with its communications equipment damaged. By the time Interpol alerted Dover Coastguard about the apparent hijacking, the Arctic Sea had already passed through the English Channel, UK Coastguards said.

The ship failed to reach its destination at Bejaia in northern Algeria on August 4, as a supposed crew member on board the vessel told Dover Coastguard when radio contact was made. It was last recorded on the AISLive ship tracking system off the coast of Brest, northern France, just before 1.30am on July 30.

Russian president Dmitry Medvedev ordered all Russian navy ships in the Atlantic to search for the missing vessel, Itar-Tass reported.

Mark Clark, of the UK's Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), said Dover Coastguard was unsuspecting of anything untoward as a supposed crew member radioed before the ship journeyed through the Channel. The MCA could not confirm the sighting.