Refuelling red tape hampers missions
Two days after being notified by the Vietnamese authorities that 11 survivors had been found and 25 fishermen were missing from the Fung Ching Fuk, Hong Kong officials despatched two Government Flying Service (GFS) aircraft to the area.
The crew of the first search and rescue plane spent just over an hour combing part of the zone in the late afternoon.
The amount of time that could be spent searching the area was limited because the aircraft ran low on fuel. Most of the fuel was used on the two-hour flight to and from the remote islands.
Another GFS aircraft was sent out from Hong Kong the next day and conducted two further searches.
After a 90-minute scan of the zone, the aircraft refuelled in Manila before spending another two hours searching the waters.
A source familiar with the search for the missing crew of the Hong Kong vessel said procedures for refuelling GFS search and rescue aircraft in another country were tied up in red tape. Delays were inevitable because to gain approval, consulates first had to be approached in Hong Kong.
The request would then be transmitted to the capital and waiting for a reply could waste valuable time.
'It's very complicated. It's another country, so clearance is needed,' said the official.
The authorities in Hong Kong also had to contact air-traffic control authorities overseas to gain clearance, he said.
Hong Kong had decided to give a high priority to search and rescue because it wanted to maintain its status as an international port, said the official.
Other, less well-off countries in the region do not have the funds or capability to mount international search and rescue missions. 'It is not a priority for them to send out aircraft or vessels to mount search efforts. They just do not have the money to do it as often as it should be done,' he said.
