Media release

The National Search and Rescue Council Australian Search and Rescue Awards are open for nominations.

The awards recognise outstanding contributions to search and rescue within the Australian region from 1 July 2020 to 30 June 2021. Anyone can nominate another person or team of people for one of the prestigious National awards. 

There are three categories for the awards. Professional, non-professional, and long-standing contribution to the community: Australian Search and Rescue Awards - National Search and Rescue Council (amsa.gov.au)

AMSA is looking for interested tenderers for an upcoming project at Port Hedland, Western Australia.

The successful tenderer will be tasked with replacing the above-water sections of the thirteen seaward Port Hedland aids to navigation (AtoN) channel markers.

This work is necessary due to the age of the upper structures, damage sustained in Tropical Cyclone Veronica in 2019 and due to the requirement to raise the light above the storm wave height and into alignment with the inshore beacons.

Chief officer and company of a Liberian-flagged bulk carrier fined and convicted for dumping garbage into the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

Key points:

A powerful lantern, hoisted high into view of passing ships by twenty-four metres of stainless steel, keeps watch over the dangerous, tropical seas between Coquet and Howick Islands in Far North Queensland.

The master of Sydney Harbour passenger vessel, Lady Rose, has pleaded guilty and been convicted of one count of unreasonably placing the safety of another person at risk in the Downing Centre Local Court on Monday, 22 February 2021.

On behalf of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA), the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions laid charges against the master, 45-year-old Paul Arthur Titze, for failing to comply with his general safety duties under the Marine Safety (Domestic Commercial Vessel) National Law Act 2012.

Yesterday, a solo sailor who was rescued after spending several hours alone in the ocean after being pitched overboard from his yacht, met some of AMSA’s Search and Rescue aircrew who helped save his life.

On 4 January 2021, AMSA tasked its Cairns-based search and rescue (SAR) Challenger Jet to locate 55-year-old Nigel Fox, when he was separated from his yacht, 93 kilometres northeast from the remote town of Nhulunbuy in the Northern Territory. The crew not only located Nigel, but successfully dropped a life raft to him before he was later retrieved by NT police.

The owner of a dilapidated barge who was caught operating the vessel in Pittwater despite a prohibition by authorities, was convicted and fined $5,500 in Sydney Magistrates Court on Wednesday, 24 February 2021. 

Marine safety inspectors from Transport for NSW, acting on behalf of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) issued the barge’s owner, Pittwater Enterprises, with a prohibition notice in May 2017. 

The maintenance and operation of livestock ships exporting animals from Australia will be under the intense compliance spotlight of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority over the next six months.

Four recreational spear fishers were rescued this morning after their 4.8 metre vessel capsized and sank off Broughton Island, near Port Stephens, New South Wales soon after setting out on a fishing trip.

AMSA Response Centre (ARC) Duty Manager Joseph Zeller said the Westpac 4 rescue helicopter was tasked to the scene after the vessel’s EPIRB was detected just after 7.20am.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority has helped save the lives of thirteen persons who had been missing for over a week in the Solomon Sea. 

The vessel was reported to have broken down on the 22nd of January in the vicinity of Alcester Island, 585 kilometres east of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, with thirteen persons on board.