MARITIME SEARCH AND RESCUE

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) was established in 1990 to oversee and regulate shipping safety in Australian waters. As a statutory agency within the Commonwealth Department of Infrastructure and Transport, its functions include maintaining a maritime distress and safety communications network and coordinating search and rescue (SAR) operations within its designated region.

AMSA’S SAR REGION

The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) and the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), in consultation with member nations, have allocated SAR regions to nations, including Australia.

AMSA’s SAR region covers the Australian continent and large areas of the Indian, Pacific and Southern Oceans, as well as the Australian Antarctic territories – an area of nearly 53 million square kilometres. Not only vast in area, the enormity of the task is underscored by the fact that the Indian Ocean alone carries almost half the world’s container ships and one-third of bulk cargo, and