A Coast Guard HC-130 Hercules aviator from Air Station Barbers Point, Hawaii, prepares to launch from Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands for an ongoing search on March 8, 2025. (Jonathan Tippy/U.S. Coast Guard)
Authorities on Monday suspended the search for a Marshall Islands sea ambulance and its crew of four, missing since March 3, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.
“We stand with the families and the Republic of the Marshall Islands community in their grief,” Chief Warrant Officer Sara Muir, spokeswoman for U.S. Coast Guard Forces Micronesia, Sector Guam, said in a news release.
The 37-foot fiberglass vessel left Majuro, the Marshall Islands’ capital, at 12:30 p.m. for Mili Atoll, 73 miles southeast, for a tuberculosis screening, the Marshall Islands Ministry of Health and Human Services said March 4. It did not arrive at the atoll and failed to return to Majuro by its expected arrival time that evening, according to the Coast Guard and the health ministry.
The six-day search included a U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon patrol aircraft from Kadena Air Base, Okinawa; a Coast Guard HC-130 Hercules from Air Station Barbers Point, Hawaii; and two vessels from the Marshall Islands — the RMIS Lomor 03, a sea patrol vessel, and the LiWeton Mour, another sea ambulance, according to a Coast Guard update Monday.
Searchers faced challenging conditions in the vast Pacific, Muir said. A “little bit higher sea state with larger swells” hindered visibility.
The Navy, Coast Guard and Marshall Islands crews conducted more than 16 searches covering 52,391 square miles — an area the size of Arkansas — over nearly 82 flight hours, but found no sign of the vessel, Muir said by text message.
The missing vessel’s captain was an experienced mariner, and the route was a routine transit, she said searchers were told. Also aboard the vessel was a nurse practitioner, a health assistant and a community health outreach worker, according to the Monday update.
The Marshall Islands has an extremely high incidence of tuberculosis — at least 100 times higher than the U.S. — according to EthnoMed, a medical website sponsored by the University of Washington Health Sciences Libraries and Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention collaborated with the Marshall Islands Health Ministry to train health care providers to recognize and treat TB, a virulent lung disease. The Marshalls is a sovereign nation that relies on the U.S. for defense and security under a 42-year-old compact.
The Marshall Islands is the first Pacific nation to initiate mass TB screenings, according to Dr. Richard Bostrom, CDC tuberculosis officer for Hawaii and the U.S. Pacific Islands, who spoke Dec. 9 at a TB training session in Majuro, according to a ministry news release.
A ministry spokesperson could not be immediately reached Monday by phone or email.
Because Pacific islanders are experienced mariners, search efforts in the region often last for days, unlike in areas with more extreme conditions, Muir said. “We know there’s a chance, and we’re always thrilled when we can find them,” she added.
The vessel was equipped with communication and navigation systems capable of sending a distress call, but no signal was received, according to New Zealand public radio RNZ Pacific, which cited the health ministry Friday.
“It’s always difficult when we don’t find the people we’re looking for,” Muir said by phone Monday. “Suspending an active search effort is never easy. It doesn’t diminish respect for mariners’ lives and hope that answers may come for their families.”
