All 26 crew of the cargo ship KM Prima Sentosa were rescued after a fire broke out in the ship's engine room off Bengkulu, on the west coast of Sumatra, on the evening of Friday 16 October 2026. The Bengkulu office of Basarnas, Indonesia's national search and rescue agency, said all of them reached port safely on Saturday 17 October.
Basarnas Bengkulu said the fire started at about 19:00 local time (Western Indonesia Time) and that the ship's agent alerted it at 20:00. The ship was sailing from Muara Jawa to Nagan Raya. The national news agency ANTARA, quoting Basarnas, later gave the time of the fire as around midnight.
Eleven crew first reported missing
According to the first Basarnas report, 13 crew escaped from the burning ship by liferaft and were picked up by a passing vessel, the Seroja 20. At that point the agency counted about 24 people on board and said 11 were unaccounted for.
The rescue vessel KN SAR 213 Bengkulu left Pulau Baai port at 20:15. Basarnas gave the ship's position as 3°43'29.4"S 101°50'18"E, about 30 nautical miles from Pulau Baai. The search also involved the Indonesian Navy base in Bengkulu (Lanal Bengkulu), the marine police, the port operator Pelindo and local fishermen from Pulau Baai.
The rescue team reached the scene at about 02:00 on Saturday. It found the other 13 crew close to the Prima Sentosa. Basarnas said they had chosen to stay near the ship because they were afraid of being carried away by the current if they moved away from it. The evacuation took about two hours in what Basarnas described as challenging sea conditions.
The final count was 26 crew, all safe: 23 Indonesian nationals and three foreign nationals. They were taken to the Pelindo port at Pulau Baai to be registered and given health checks. The reports did not say what happened to the ship after the fire or what caused it.
What crews can take from it
Half of the crew got clear by liferaft and were picked up by a passing ship. Basarnas said help from passing vessels was an important part of the rescue.
The other 13 stayed close to their ship, where rescuers found them. Basarnas said the scattered positions of the crew were one of the challenges of the search.
The first estimate of people on board was 24, but 26 were rescued. Rescuers use the crew list to know how many people they are looking for, so an accurate, up-to-date crew list matters.
The fire started in the engine room. Know your fire stations, your muster point and how to launch the liferafts on your own ship before you need to.
Cover photo: US Air Force personnel sit in a life raft during a water rescue training exercise at White Beach Naval Facility, Okinawa, Japan, August 2005. Illustrative photo. Photo: Master Sgt. Val Gempis, U.S. Air Force/Wikimedia Commons, public domain (cropped).
Sources: Kompas.com: KM Prima Sentosa dilaporkan terbakar di perairan Bengkulu, 11 ABK hilang (16 Oct 2026, in Indonesian), Kompas.com: Dua jam, Basarnas dan Tim SAR gabungan evakuasi 26 kru kapal KM Prima Sentosa (17 Oct 2026, in Indonesian), ANTARA: Basarnas: 26 kru kapal terbakar tiba di Kota Bengkulu dengan selamat (17 Oct 2026, in Indonesian), JPNN: KM Prima Sentosa terbakar di perairan Bengkulu, 26 kru dievakuasi (17 Oct 2026, in Indonesian).
