Incidents · piracy

M/V asta towing barge, 12 persons on board, hijacked

South China Sea · HYDROPAC 266/10

What this record establishes

Archived notice · 2010-02-14 10:05Z

This notice comes from the historical archive. Its archived status does not establish when or how the reported situation ended.

Source and dates: NGA MSI broadcast-warn JSON (archive, frozen 2024-05) · SPOCC 101634Z FEB 10.. Issued 2010-02-10 21:18Z. First collected 2026-08-17 13:38Z; last seen in collection 2026-08-17 15:46Z. Collection dates record ingestion, not a new incident or a fresh field observation.
Location covered: South China Sea. The parsed report position is 4.733, 109.855. It is a position in the source message, not a live location. Check the original wording for limits and qualifications.

Original warning text

SOUTH CHINA SEA.
PIRACY.
1. M/V ASTA TOWING BARGE, 12 PERSONS ON BOARD, HIJACKED.
   LAST KNOWN POSITION 04-44.0N 109-51.3E AT 100130Z FEB.
   VESSELS IN VICINITY REQUESTED TO KEEP A SHARP LOOKOUT,
   REPORTS TO SINGAPORE PORT OPERATIONS CONTROL CENTER,
   TELEX: 20021, PHONE: 656 226 5539, FAX: 656 227 9971,
   E-MAIL: POCC@MPA.GOV.SG. CAUTION ADVISED.
2. CANCEL HYDROPAC 253/10(93).

Reading this warning

Piracy and armed robbery: Attacks and attempted boardings of ships, and suspicious approaches by small craft.
Tow / towing: A vessel towing another vessel, a barge or a structure — slow, hard to manoeuvre, and with a long line between.
Persons on board (POB): The number of people reported aboard a vessel in distress, overdue or missing.
Last known position: The most recent confirmed position of a missing vessel or person — the starting point of a search.
Position (degrees and minutes): How warnings write positions: degrees, a hyphen, then minutes, with N/S and E/W — 49-40.8N 003-43.8W.
Date-time group (DTG): A compact UTC timestamp — day, hour and minute followed by Z — such as 201500Z for the 20th at 15:00 UTC.
Keep a sharp lookout: A request to every ship in the area to watch for the vessel, people or object described.
Cancellation reference: A line that cancels an earlier warning by its number, such as CANCEL HYDROLANT 1085/12.
HYDROPAC: The U.S. long-range warning series for the Pacific outside NAVAREA XII and for the Indian Ocean, Persian Gulf and adjoining seas.

All warning terms →

Collected reports in this area · distress & casualty cases (archived)

211 within 180 nm since 1999 · 0 in the last 12 months · 0 listed in force now

Counts include repeat notices about the same situation. NGA archive coverage ends 2024-05; live collection began 2026-08-17. The period between them is incomplete. An empty year is not evidence that no hazards occurred.

Month of issue in the collected archive

All available years combined. Uneven collection and repeat bulletins affect these counts; this chart does not measure the seasonality or probability of incidents.

Nearby notices listed in force · within 120 nm

No other collected notice is currently listed in force within this radius. This does not establish safe conditions.

Worldwide in the collected sources

0 distress & casualty cases (archived) listed in force · see all

Record snapshot 2026-09-25 02:02Z; source collection times vary.

Incidents

Search-and-rescue broadcasts, published only once a case has been closed for 30 days: groundings, sinkings, capsizes, fires, man overboard, overdue vessels. Nothing here is live. All current distress & casualty cases (archived) →

Not for navigation. This is a re-rendering of an official navigational warning for awareness; mariners must use official NAVAREA broadcasts and their national MSI service.