How the NSRI uses global rescue technology to save lives

This September, the NSRI will join the international maritime and aviation community in recognising the first-ever Cospas-Sarsat Global Search and Rescue Day. Observed on 10 September, this annual event will celebrate the life-saving work of the Cospas-Sarsat Programme — a satellite-based system that has helped save more than 60,000 lives worldwide since its inception in 1982.

Cospas-Sarsat is simple in purpose but profound in impact. When a vessel, aircraft, or individual activates an emergency beacon, satellites detect the signal and relay the location to rescue authorities at no cost to the person in distress. This technology can mean the difference between life and death for anyone stranded at sea.

One such moment came in June 2011, when the 40-foot catamaran Gulliver capsized in gale-force winds off Cape Infanta. Skipper Greg West and his three crewmen were fighting five-metre swells and freezing water after a sudden squall overturned their yacht. With communications lost and flares unseen, their last lifeline was their EPIRB (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon). Crewman Shaun Kennedy swam under the upturned hull to release it, sending out a signal that the Cospas-Sarsat system picked up and relayed to South African authorities. Hours later, against all odds, NSRI Witsand’s Attie Gunter, Leon Pretorius and Quentin Denier, onboard the Queenie Paine located the flickering light of the life raft and brought all four sailors to safety.

A similarly dramatic rescue unfolded off the Wild Coast in 2015, when the French catamaran Lama Lo struck a whale and capsized. Skipper Jean Sitruk and 20-year-old South African crewman Kyle Castelyn spent a harrowing night in a tiny inflatable tender, battered by gale-force winds and five-metre swells. Their EPIRB signal triggered an international rescue effort. After hours of searching, the 277 metre French container ship CMA CGM Rossini, commanded by Captain Hervé Lepage, spotted the two men and brought them aboard just before sunset. “We were nearer death than life,” Jean later recalled.

As the NSRI prepares to recognise Global Search and Rescue Day, these rescues remind us that behind the satellites, ground stations, and mission control centres lies a singular humanitarian mission: to save lives. This international collaboration, powered by technology and made real by the courage of sailors and rescuers, is what we will celebrate on 10 September.