Update, 31 October 2026: Three bodies have now been brought up from the sunken rig. The head of Gabon's navy said two bodies came up on 29 October and a third on 30 October. He said work to identify them was under way, Gabonmediatime reports.
On 30 October, Gabon's state news agency AGP reported that the search for bodies has ended. It quoted the crisis team. The team said all three bodies it was looking for were found and identified. AGP said two of the dead were from Gabon and one was from Croatia.
The reports do not fully agree. On 30 October, the navy chief also said that a fourth body was seen inside the wreck, and that teams were working to bring it up. The authorities have not given a new number of missing people. The latest statement we found from Borr Drilling is from 29 October.
A drilling rig with 115 people on board sank off the coast of Gabon in West Africa. The rig was the Prospector 5, owned and run by the company Borr Drilling. It sank at about 20:37 local time on Saturday, 24 October 2026.
The rig was off Mayumba, in the south of Gabon, in the Dussafu Marin oil field. It was working for the oil company BW Energy. It had not started drilling yet.
The people on board
As of 29 October 2026, 110 of the 115 people on board were rescued. Three people were found dead, and two are still missing. Gabon's navy and Borr Drilling both give these figures.
On 28 October, an ROV found three bodies inside the sunken rig. An ROV is a remotely operated vehicle: a small robot submarine controlled from a ship. The head of Gabon's navy, Vice Admiral Charles Hubert Bekale Meyong, announced the find, the Gabonese news agency AGP reported. He said the images do not show who the three people are. Teams are preparing to bring the bodies up.
On 29 October, Borr Drilling said that recovery work is under way. It said the search goes on for the two people who are still unaccounted for. The 110 rescued workers are still in Gabon. The company gives them housing, care and support.
In its first statement on 25 October, Gabon's government said three of the five missing were from Gabon. One was from India and one was from Croatia. The authorities have not said who the three dead people are.
Early reports differed. On 25 October, Reuters quoted a union official who said the Indian worker was found dead. On 27 October, the newspaper L'Union reported that a body was recovered from the sea. The official statements of 28 and 29 October do not mention these reports.
A prosecutor in Tchibanga, in southern Gabon, opened an investigation on 25 October, the navy said.
On 26 October, 100 of the 110 rescued workers arrived at Port-Gentil, Gabon's main oil port. Doctors checked them at the navy base. Then 94 went to hotels and six went to a medical centre for more care. The other ten were expected on Tuesday, 27 October, L'Union reported. It said their boat had an engine problem, according to the company.
The search
Gabon's navy leads the search from a crisis command post. Two helicopters searched during the night of the accident, and a third joined on Sunday morning. Teams also watch the coast. The Republic of Congo, Gabon's neighbour to the south, sent its navy to help.
Gabon's navy used ROVs to look at the sunken rig. On 28 October, the navy said its teams stay fully ready to keep searching for the two other missing people.
On 26 October, Gabon's president, Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema, met the rescued workers at the navy base in Port-Gentil. He told the navy to keep searching, together with BW Energy and Borr Drilling. He said the results of the technical investigation will be made public. He also said production at MaBoMo will stay stopped until safety is fully guaranteed.
What happened
A jack-up rig is a drilling platform that stands on the seabed on long steel legs. When it arrives at a new place, the crew lower the legs and lift the hull out of the water. This is called jacking.
Before drilling, the crew add heavy weight, usually water ballast, to push the legs firmly into the seabed. This is called preload. Borr Drilling said that, by early information, the rig had a punch-through during preload. In a punch-through, the ground under a leg suddenly gives way and the leg sinks fast. The rig then lost stability and sank, the company said.
This is the company's early view, not a final finding. Gabon's oil ministry has ordered a technical investigation.
Other details
The rig was built in 2014. It was going to drill four production wells for BW Energy, Splash247 reported.
BW Energy stopped oil production at its nearby MaBoMo platform as a safety step. It said the platform was not damaged.
The government said no oil pollution was seen. But the rig had 280 cubic metres of diesel on board, so teams keep watching the sea.
What crews can learn
Jacking and preload are some of the riskiest moments in the life of a jack-up rig. Seafarers on rigs and on the supply and standby ships around them can keep these points in mind.
Know your muster station, your lifeboat or life raft and your job in an emergency before every rig move.
Take part in abandon drills seriously, including at night. This rig sank in the evening.
Follow the rig move and preload procedures. Report anything unusual, such as a leg moving or the hull tilting, at once. Everyone on board can stop the job if it is not safe.
On standby and supply ships near a rig move, be ready to help with rescue.
After an accident like this, it is normal to feel shock or stress. Talk to someone. SeafarerHelp from ISWAN (International Seafarers' Welfare and Assistance Network) is free, confidential and open 24 hours a day.
Cover photo: A jack-up drilling rig at sea at the Minke field in the North Sea, March 2007. Illustrative photo, not the Prospector 5. Photo: tom jervis/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0 (cropped).
Sources: AGP: Mayumba offshore accident, three bodies recovered and identified, search ended (30 Oct 2026, in French), Gabonmediatime: Prospector 5 sinking, four bodies located (31 Oct 2026, in French), Gabon government: Statement on the accident of the jack-up drilling rig Prospector 5 off Mayumba (25 Oct 2026, in French, PDF), Borr Drilling: Prospector 5 rig incident (25 Oct 2026), BW Energy: Drilling rig incident on the Dussafu licence (25 Oct 2026), gCaptain (Reuters): Borr Drilling rig sinks off Gabon, one person dead and four missing (25 Oct 2026), Splash247: Search for missing workers underway after Borr jackup sinking (26 Oct 2026), ISWAN: SeafarerHelp, Gabonactu: Naufrage du Prospector 5 (27 Oct 2026, in French)., Borr Drilling: Prospector 5 rig incident update (26 Oct 2026), L'Union: Naufrage du Prospector 5, Oligui Nguema aux côtés des rescapés (27 Oct 2026, in French), Borr Drilling: Prospector 5 rig incident update (29 Oct 2026), AGP: three bodies located inside the sunken rig (29 Oct 2026, in French)
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