A speedboat transporting 11 foreign tourists and two crew members lost contact on Friday during a crossing from Tojo Una-Una in Central Sulawesi to Marisa, Gorontalo, prompting a search across roughly 1,000 square kilometres of Tomini Bay.
The vessel departed at 7 a.m. local time on 24 July and was expected to arrive four hours later, but never reached port. Authorities received a missing-vessel report at 3:40 p.m. The passengers aboard include five Dutch, three German, one Belgian, one Czech and one French national, along with a captain and one deckhand.
Rescue teams deployed a drone equipped with a thermal imaging camera to scour the area, but operations were hampered by strong winds and waves reaching 2.5 metres, forcing a pause until Saturday morning.