ANNEX 1
Resolution No.3
GLOBAL MARITIME DISTRESS AND SAFETY SYSTEM (GMDSS)
The 1998 Fremantle Conference on Maritime Search and Rescue (SAR) and the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS),
RECALLING Resolution 6 of the International Conference on Maritime Search and Rescue 1979, which invited the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to develop a global maritime distress and safety system that would include telecommunication provisions for the effective operation of the search and rescue pin prescribed by the Annex to the International Convention on Maritime Search and Rescue, 1979,
NOTING that IMO has developed a global maritime distress and safety system, by means of amendments to the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), 1974, which entered into force on 1 February 1992 and uses Inmarsat and COSPAS-SARSAT satellite systems as well as digital selective calling, direct-printing and radiotelephone on terrestrial MF and HF frequencies for distress and safety purposes including those for search and rescue,
NOTING FURTHER that the World Administrative Radio Conference for Mobile Telecommunications, 1987, adopted amendments to the Radio Regulations and that the Conference of Contracting Governments to the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, 1974, in 1988 adopted amendments to the 1974 SOLAS Convention to introduce the global maritime distress and safety system,
BEING CONCERNED over the high number of false distress alert incidents which undermine the credibility of the GMDSS and unnecessarily overstress the SAR organizations,
CONSIDERING the need for shore-based facilities to introduce the system in the Indian Ocean region,
CONSIDERING ALSO IMO Assembly resolution A.814 (19) - Guidelines, for the avoidance of false alerts,
1. URGES all coastal States in the Indian Ocean region to take account of the GMDSS in any national plans to improve maritime radiocommunications or their SAR organization and to communicate details of such plans to IMO;
2. INVITES the Maritime Safety Committee of IMO to:
(a) consider how to develop a single registration database for GMDSS equipment users which rescue co-ordination centres may readily access to support searched rescue operations;
(b) consider further appropriate measures to eliminate false distress alerts;
(c) encourage States operating MRCCs associated with Inmarsat coast earth stations to ensure that suitable arrangements are in place to relay Inmarsat distress alerts to all responsible MRCCs within the service area of the respective coast earth stations;
(d) encourage States operating MRCCs to establish means of direct communication between all MRCCs in the region/area;
