An overdue local fishing boat, the ‘Christabelle’, was earlier on Tuesday succesfully located by the Armed Forces of Malta after it failed to make port at her estimated time of arrival.

The Marsascala based fishing boat was manned by a four man crew. It was reported overdue by a crewman’s family member at 0745CET. An initial communications search yielded no response to the AFM’s Rescue Co-ordination Centre’s efforts.

A Maritime Squadron search-and-rescue (SAR) launch, the Melita-2, was soon underway to investigate other fishing vessels who may have seen or had radio contact with the ‘Christabelle’. Subsequently, another two patrolboats were also dispatched to sea on different bearings to conduct search pattern in the ‘Christabelle’s known usual favourite fishing areas.

An AFM Air Wing Islander aircraft was later tasked to perform an aerial search, whilst the locally-based FRONTEX Merlin aircraft from Luxembourg was also alerted to perform a search tasking.

By 1040CET, it was established that another local fishing boat, the ‘Consiglia Madre’, had earlier in the morning been in radio contact with the overdue boat. Barely 15 minutes later, the AFM Islander aircraft managed to succesfully contact the ‘Christabelle’ and overfly it, ascertaining that all was well onboard with vessel and its crew as they were gathering their cast nets from the sea. The vessel was located in a position nearly 61 nautical miles from Delimara Point.

The ‘Christabelle’ is expected to make it back to its home berth later on Tuesday.