Indian maritime agencies were searching the Bay of Bengal for 22 missing crew members from the Panama-flagged bulk carrier MV Ocean Winner after two people were rescued from life rafts. The vessel, carrying iron ore from Odisha to China, was feared to have sunk after issuing a distress alert and losing communication.
The ship had 24 people aboard: 20 Chinese nationals, three Myanmar nationals and one Bangladeshi national. The two survivors were Chinese nationals, according to an Indian Coast Guard spokesperson cited by The New Indian Express. Their identities and ranks were still being verified, and they were receiving medical care.
An Indian Navy P-8I maritime patrol aircraft was redirected from a surveillance flight to join the search, working with the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre at Sri Vijaya Puram. The aircraft located drifting life rafts near the ship's last known position. The New Indian Express also reported that it observed an oil slick, but search teams had not located the vessel itself.
A nearby merchant tanker recovered the two crew members from the rafts late on Saturday, August 22. Reporting differed on the tanker's spelling, identifying it as MT Aisopos in The Times of India and MT Aospos in The New Indian Express. The second outlet said another merchant vessel, the LNG tanker MT Mol Azure, also joined the operation after an international safety alert was issued.
The Indian Coast Guard deployed the ships Varad, Anmol and Vijit to conduct surface searches, while the naval aircraft supported the effort from the air. By the event date, the operation remained focused on finding the other 22 people. No exact position of the sunken or missing carrier had been publicly established in the reports.
The two accounts placed Ocean Winner off the Odisha coast but gave different distance descriptions for its last known or reported position. Because those measurements were not consistent, the vessel's distance from shore remained unclear. Both reports agreed that the emergency unfolded in the Bay of Bengal and that Indian Navy and Coast Guard assets were leading the response.
The New Indian Express reported that the carrier was transporting about 71,000 metric tonnes of iron ore and measured about 225 metres long and 32 metres wide. It had lost tracking and communications on Friday before sending a distress alert on Saturday morning.
Authorities had not officially determined what caused the vessel to disappear or sink. That left the search-and-rescue mission, rather than an explanation of the casualty, as the immediate priority. With two people safe and 22 still unaccounted for, ships and aircraft continued to work around the carrier's last known area.
