Rescuers plan to right the Virgo Transport 8 over 129 still missing

Indonesian rescuers said on 17 September they will try to roll the capsized ferry Virgo Transport 8 upright in the Java Sea so they can search the hull for 129 people still missing. Divers from the navy have not been able to enter. Currents at the wreck exceeded safe diving limits. Waves of up to 2.5 metres have cut into surface searches. Six people are confirmed dead. One hundred and eight have been rescued. Those two tallies have not moved since Sunday.

The ship, owned by PT Virgo Karya Shipping and bought from Japan, left Surabaya on 12 September for Banjarmasin with 243 people and 89 vehicles. The crossing is about 20 hours. Around 2:00 a.m. WITA on 13 September the captain reported that the vessel was listing. That was the last contact. The wreck now lies about 150 kilometres from Banjarmasin port, in water about 29 metres deep, and has drifted roughly 450 metres from the first fix. Part of the hull was visible above the water earlier in the week. Air and sea sweeps on Wednesday found none of the missing. The same pattern was due to run on Thursday.

Basarnas official Syafii said righting the ship would take about 24 hours in ordinary conditions and longer if the lift went badly. After the search, the plan is to tow the hull away. Under Indonesian maritime law the owner must clear a wreck that sits in a traffic corridor. A marine specialist at ITS Surabaya, Kriyo Sambodho, said winds in the area had reached 30 knots and waves about two metres. Another ITS voice, Ikap, said the ship's design came from Japanese waters that are narrower than the open Java Sea and that its fitness for that route should be re-examined. Cause remains officially under investigation.

The numbers are ugly in a specific way. One hundred and twenty-nine missing four days after a capsize, with the ship inverted in current too strong for divers, means the next bodies, if they are found, will likely come out of the hull after the roll. Families at Banjarmasin port have already stood over printed lists. Twenty-two survivors and four bodies were brought in on 15 September. Each day without a change in the missing count is a day the sea search is not working and the underwater search has not started.

Indonesia's ferry record is long and grim. Weather, maintenance and weak enforcement are the usual trio in official comments after a disaster. This one adds a design question about a second-hand Japanese hull on an exposed crossing, and an operational question about how long a state waits before it tries to flip a wreck with people still unaccounted for. Syafii's 24-hour estimate is the first calendar the families have been given that is not a weather delay.

If the roll works, investigators will finally see the vehicle deck and the spaces where passengers were when the list began. If it fails, the missing stay in a hull on the bottom and the owner still has a legal duty to move a wreck. The useful fact from 17 September is that Basarnas has chosen the roll because every other method has already been tried and has produced no one.