A non-governmental organization searches from the air for migrant boats in danger

A pilot working with a non-governmental organization to rescue migrants flies over the waters of the Atlantic Ocean, searching for boats in trouble. “With this rough ocean and strong winds, every hour of searching is crucial,” he said as he surveyed the area off the coast of West Africa.

The Swiss Humanitarian Pilots Initiative is carrying out aerial surveillance operations over the Atlantic Ocean, with a difficult mission that requires monitoring wooden boats no more than 20 meters long in a vast area at an altitude of 450 metres.

Summing up the challenge, the pilot says that people who undertake this journey “are at risk of death from dehydration, heat, or hypothermia.”

More than 3,000 migrants spent the year 2026, according to the Spanish organization Caminando Fronteras, trying to reach Spain in search of a better future. Most of them were killed during trips from Africa to the Canary Islands across the Atlantic Ocean.

With European countries tightening their border controls and imposing strict restrictions on granting visas, migrants are forced to take this risky path.

The “Humanitarian Pilots Initiative” has been active over the Mediterranean since 2016, where it has contributed to monitoring more than 1,000 boats in support of rescue ships belonging to international non-governmental organizations, and it is currently carrying out its third mission on this sea route within nine months.

One of the organization’s pilots, Omar Al-Manfaluti, who flies a lightweight Beechcraft 58 Baron plane, which they called “Sea Bird,” said, “The Atlantic Ocean is huge. It is impossible to completely cover the route taken by wooden boats.”

He added: “We are focusing in particular on areas where other parties are absent, at a distance of between 300 and 500 nautical miles from the Canary Islands. This is often a gray area where relief teams arrive late.”

For her part, the tactical coordinator of the mission (Samira), who did not want to reveal her full name, due to threats the organization receives in several European countries, said: “From the air, we have better speed and vision than ships.”

She added that when a migrant boat is spotted, an emergency response is launched in coordination with nearby commercial ships, and the Spanish State Rescue Authority takes over the operation.

She stated that one morning in January, the organization received an alert from the non-governmental organization Alarm Phone, stating that a boat had gone missing that had set off from the Gambia with 103 people on board, including nine women and three children. The team immediately prepared to take off. Samira explained that “the departure of migrants from the Gambia means embarking on a journey of about 1,000 nautical miles… and the search conditions are completely different if the engine breaks down on the first day or on the eighth day.”

Samira draws on her tablet several possible routes off Nouadhibou in Mauritania, in an area where boats generally head to Ile Hiro, the westernmost of the Canary Islands, which is the route furthest from the coast and least monitored. Samira said that upon reaching the area, the plane lands under the clouds and flies in straight, parallel lines, while the three crew members watch from the windows in search of a wooden boat covered with a shade and crowded with passengers to the point where the water is almost to the brim.

At this time, a new alert appears on the tablet, indicating the loss of a second boat that set off from Gambia seven days ago with 137 people on board. Samira explained that “it is possible that the two boats were lost at sea,” due to winds and waves, and boats had previously become lost in the past and were found in the Caribbean Sea and in the waters of South America.

After three consecutive days of flying, during which the plane covered 3,800 nautical miles, neither boat was found, and neither had arrived at its destination at the time of publishing this report.