After helping 15 sailors get on a rescue boat from a life raft off Sri Lanka, the captain of the Saigon Queen was the last to leave the raft, but he suddenly lost his grip on the ladder and fell into the sea.

>> Saigon Queen ship sinks off Sri Lanka, 4 missing The heart-breaking incident occurred on the night of October 30, and Captain Nguyen Minh Luan, 51, has since gone missing, along with three other members of the ship’s 22-man crew, VnExpress reported. The three missing include chief mechanic Hoang Van Ban, 58, Tran Van De, 54, a mechanic, and Pham Phu Huu, 27, a sailor. These crew members were swept away by strong waves when they had already gotten on a life raft, said Nguyen Quoc Tam, the sunken ship’s chief officer. The captain fell because he was exhausted from his efforts to communicate and coordinate with potential rescuers to save the ship’s crewmembers, Tam said, adding that before he fell Luan, as well as the others, had been wearing a life-preserver and a heat jacket.

Meanwhile, the 15 above-mentioned sailors made it onto the rescue boat, the Cyprus-flagged Pacific Skipper, safely. The boat has previously saved three other sailors, one of whom was slightly injured, who were drifting on another life raft after the Saigon Queen sank.

After helping 15 sailors get on the Cyprus-flagged Pacific Skipper, Captain Nguyen Minh Luan suddenly lost his grip on the ladder and fell into the sea (Photo: Tien Phong)

Efforts to search for the four missing crew members are still underway, but there has been no further information about their fate, said Nguyen Anh Vu, general director of the Vietnam Maritime Search and Rescue Co-ordination Center (MRCC). Last night rescue operations were hampered by strong waves and violent winds in the area where the ship sank, Vu said. As previously reported, in the afternoon of October 30, the MRCC received emergency signals indicating a potentially hazardous situation from the ship while it was transporting wood products from Myanmar to India. The agency then sent out urgent SOS calls that led to the rescue of 18 crewmembers. The Saigon Queen was nearly 103 meters long and about 17 meters wide, and had a tonnage of 6,500 DWT. It is owned by the Saigon Shipping Joint Stock Company and was built in 2006 by the Saigon Shipbuilding Industry Co.

 An injured sailor receives care from his colleagues (VnExpress)

Saigon Queen was seen before it sunk off Sri Lanka on October 30  (Photo: Marine Trafic)