The four surviving Galician crew members of the shipwreck of the 'Argos Georgia' arrived by military plane to Santiago de Compostela; while the two observers will land in Madrid.
As reported on Saturday by the Government Delegation in Galicia, the survivors gave a statement on Friday in the Malvinas and arrived in their country yesterday, Sunday, on a plane chartered by the Spanish Ministry of Defense.
As will be remembered, of the 27 crew members of the Argos Georgias, ten were Spanish. Of which six survived, four of them Galician – three from Ribeira (A Coruña) and one from Pontevedra –, in addition to one person from Barcelona and another from Albacete. This is the captain, José Saborido Rey; the first officer, José Ramón Hombre Saborido; and the chief engineer, Ramón García Reiriz, who are natives of Ribeira. For his part, the second officer of the “Argos Georgia”, Frandisco Gondar Sanjorge, is a native of Pontevedra.
The other two survivors are two Spanish scientific observers who were on board, Pere Hernández Banquete from Barcelona and Amparo Burgillos Pérez from Albacete, who managed to save their lives. In addition to the ten Spaniards, 8 Russians, 5 Indonesians, 2 Uruguayans and 2 Peruvians were sailing on board the “Argos Georgia”.
Of the deceased reported so far, two are Galician: the skipper, César Acevedo, a native of Vigo, and Santiago Leyenda, the ship's cook and resident of Baiona. In addition, two other Spaniards remain missing, both Galician, from Ribeira and Noia.
The longliner 'Arcos Georgia', owned by the British-Norwegian shipowner Argos Froyanes, sank on July 22, when it was sailing 180 nautical miles from the Malvinas Islands when it suffered a leak in the middle of a very strong storm . The Kelper maritime authority considers that the collision of the fishing boat's bow against a semi-submerged block of ice could have been the cause of the sinking. In total, the shipwreck leaves nine dead, four missing and 14 survivors.
Autopsies on the deceased will be carried out in England
The bodies of the sailors who died in the shipwreck of the “Argos Georgia” will be transferred to Oxfordshire, in England, for autopsies to be performed, in compliance with the protocols required by the British authorities.
In addition, the search and rescue operation for missing people continues after the “significant” improvement in weather conditions. A ship, a fishing boat and an airplane participate in this device.
