An NOAA research plane heading (P-3 aircraft, which is known as Miss Piggy) out to collect data on record-breaking Hurricane Lorenzo in the eastern Atlantic Ocean was diverted to search for a boat in distress dangerously close to the monster storm.
“At the request of the U.S Coast Guard, NOAA 43 … was asked to investigate the last known positions of search and rescue satellite hits for the vessel,” Jonathan Shannon, a spokesman for NOAA’s Office of Marine and Aviation Operations, told The Gazette Team
Shannon said the P-3 aircraft, which is known as Miss Piggy, was searching for a tugboat called Bourbon Rhode. The plane had taken off Friday morning from Barbados. It left the search area and was on its way back to Barbados by around 5 p.m.
The boat sent a distress call on Thursday morning, according to a report on the ship tracker website FleetMon. It was en route from Las Palmas in the Canary Islands to Georgetown, Guyana. The report said the boat was taking on water and 14 crewmen needed rescue.
There was no immediate word on the condition of the boat or the crew.
The NOAA aircraft flight path from Barbados to the area where the tugboat Bourbon Rhode was believed to be located.
A press release from the company that operates the tugboat confirmed that report.
“In particularly adverse weather conditions, the 14 crew members are facing a water ingress in the rear part of the vessel,” the release said.
Based on coordinates, the boat may have been caught up in the hurricane.
The tug appeared to have been at least within 120 miles from the center of Lorenzo Thursday morning and may have been as close as 65 to 70 miles from the rapidly intensifying hurricane, according to the location of the distress signal reported by FleetMon and National Hurricane Center advisories.
The NOAA plane’s involvement came to light during the mission, when a satellite photo of the plane’s odd zig-zagging and circling path caught the attention of a watcher on Twitter, who theorized that something must have gone wrong with the flight.
Shannon said he didn’t know how often Hurricane Hunter planes were called on to assist in such missions.
“This was a research mission, so it was not an operation mission for helping to assist the forecast, so I believe we had a little more flexibility” to divert the plane, he said.