Castaways rescued from remote island after SOS spotted in sand

Two people stranded for a week on a remote Pacific island have been rescued after signalling for help with a flashlight and an SOS message in the sand.

The couple, who had “limited supplies and no emergency equipment”, were found on an uninhabited East Fayu island in Micronesia by a US navy air crew, who discovered them on the beach near the makeshift sign, which was spotted by search aircraft, the coast guard said.

The castaways, identified as Linus and Sapina Jack, had left Weno Island en route for Tamatam Island in an 18-foot vessel over a week ago, but when the two men failed to arrive at their destination, crews from Coast Guard District 14 – which covers the Hawaiian islands, Guam, American Samoa and the Saipan area — searched nearly 17,000 square miles using 15 boats and two aircraft, a statement by the US Coast Guard in Guam said.

“The Coast Guard 14th District covers an area of responsibility more than 12.2 million square miles (43,000 square kilometres) of land and sea, an area almost twice the size of Russia,” Jennifer Conklin, search-and-rescue mission coordinator at the Coast Guard Command Centre Honolulu, said in a statement earlier this year.

However, on Wednesday, rescuers caught a break after a search vessel spotted flashing lights on an uninhabited island in Micronesia, the statement said. When a helicopter was sent to investigate, the pilots noticed “SOS” etched into the sand.

The castaways were spotted “on the beach near the makeshift sign.”

The men were picked up by a patrol boat and taken to Nomwin atoll.

It is the second similar rescue in the region in recent months.

In April, three men were rescued from the uninhabited Micronesian island of Fanadik after a large wave capsized their 19-foot skiff two miles offshore.

Stranded several hundred miles north of Papua New Guinea, the men arranged palm fronds in the sand to spell out HELP.