Missing ARCTIC SEA Spotted off France, But Disappears

August 15 (RIA Novosti) - The tracking device aboard the Russian-crewed Arctic Sea, missing since late July, was briefly reactivated on Saturday showing the vessel to be located off France, a Russian maritime journal said.

Sovfrakht said the cargo ship was in the Atlantic's Bay of Biscay near France's La Rochelle port, citing data from the tracking device as of 12:30 Moscow time (08:30 GMT), but later added the signal had disappeared within an hour.

France's Navy officials, however, rejected the report saying the vessel was not in the area.

"I strongly reject the report and so does, I think, Spain," French marine spokesman Capt. Jerome Baroe said. "Data from a [naval] operational center in Brest unequivocally shows that the Arctic Sea is not in the Bay of Biscay."

He said the signal emitted by the Automatic Identification System had come from three Russian warships heading from the Mediterranean to the Baltic Sea. They have notified French authorities that they will pass off Brittany tonight, Baroe said.

IMO International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) requires AIS to be fitted aboard international voyaging ships with grosse tonnage of 300 or more tons, and all passenger ships regardless of size. It is estimated that more than 40,000 ships currently carry AIS class A equipment.

...AIS is used in navigation primarily for collision avoidance.