22 Crew Missing: Lifeboat Found Empty as Search Expands in Bay of Bengal

Indian Coast Guard recovers an abandoned lifeboat and an EPIRB linked to the sunken MV Ocean Winner.

Aryan Kumar 29 Aug 2026 ·10:23 · 4 hours ago

2 min read BAY OF BENGAL

missing crew bay of bengal — An empty lifeboat linked to the sunken MV Ocean Winner was recovered by the Indian Coast Guard in the Bay of Bengal.

THE ESSENTIALS

22 crew members remain unaccounted for after the Panama-flagged bulk carrier MV Ocean Winner sank in the Bay of Bengal on August 22.
An empty lifeboat and an emergency beacon were recovered 290 nautical miles off the Paradip coast, confirming the vessel’s distress signal was active.
Two Chinese nationals were rescued from liferafts, while the remaining crew includes nationals from Myanmar and Bangladesh.
The 28-year-old MV Ocean Winner was carrying 71,000 tonnes of iron ore from Paradip Port to China when it sank.

The Indian Coast Guard (ICG) has recovered an empty lifeboat and an emergency beacon linked to the Panama-flagged bulk carrier MV Ocean Winner, which sank in the Bay of Bengal on August 22. The discovery was made by the ICG ship Varad at approximately 7 a.m. on Tuesday, roughly 290 nautical miles off the Paradip coast. A boarding team inspected the lifeboat but found no signs of the 22 missing crew members. The emergency position-indicating radio beacon (EPIRB) retrieved from the area confirmed the vessel’s distress signal was active at…

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