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Karl Schembri
The Armed Forces of Malta have never switched on the message recording equipment at the Luqa Operations Room, installed to keep track of the orders and communication radioed to all army units, MaltaToday can reveal.
Donated by the United States government more than five years ago, the sophisticated recording equipment has never been put into operation, senior AFM officers confirmed to MaltaToday.
The equipment is meant to keep record of messages sent to and from the AFM Central Command, helping reconstruct the chain of command for every action taken and order given by the Maltese army on its missions.
A spokesman for the Office of the Prime Minister would not delve into why the equipment is left unutilised, limiting himself to saying that the “information requested is classified and therefore not releasable unless declassified”.
The army’s failure to use the equipment means that the only record of the orders given to army units is that left in writing on the AFM log book, also kept at the Luqa Headquarters.
Parts of the classified log book leaked to MaltaToday and published earlier this month reveal that the captain of an AFM airplane and the master of a patrol boat were ordered to “keep at a distance” from a boat carrying 200 immigrants on 17 November last year, as they were passing through Maltese waters heading towards Sicily in force 6 winds. Twenty-nine of them died hours later when they shipwrecked off Ragusa, Sicily.
The entries also show that one of the patrol boats on that mission, the Melita 1, had reported it was running out of fuel just four hours after leaving base – a claim now explained by the Prime Minister’s chief spokesman as “fully justified”.
“All details regarding the operations of the craft are logged and no further verification from the master was deemed necessary,” Edgar Galea Curmi said when asked if the patrol boat master’s report had been checked and verified upon returning to base.
“The craft in question, Melita 1, is a search and rescue launch optimised for rapid intervention in such cases and not long duration operations,” Galea Curmi said.
“Even at economical speeds, its maximum endurance is 7-8 hours, depending on sea conditions and operating speeds. On 17 November, 2005 Melita 1 had just returned from a report of a diver in difficulty in Grand Harbour, which deployment lasted approximately 1 hour.
“The craft was again deployed on the case in question before the crew had time to replenish the craft. The craft deployed from base at 1330hrs and returned at 1915hrs, i.e. a total of 5hrs 45mins underway. Thus the craft had been underway for a total of 6 hours 45 minutes without refuelling. When one couples this with the rolling of the craft in the prevailing conditions which can lead to the sloshing of the fuel in the tanks and a tendency for the engines to catch air or sediment, the decision of the master to return to base to refuel was fully justified.”
Meanwhile last Tuesday, the AFM rescued 20 migrants from a boat that had stopped after engine failure 55 miles south of Grand Harbour, also in force six winds. For this mission, the offshore patrol vessel P61 was dispatched.
“The patrol vessel in question was diverted from routine patrol duties and had already been out at sea for a period in excess of 24 hours,” Galea Curmi said.
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