22 Crew Missing After Bulk Carrier Ocean Winner Sinks in Bay of Bengal

A bulk carrier named Ocean Winner went down in the Bay of Bengal on 21 August 2026, cutting contact with most of the 24 crew aboard. Ocean Winner had loaded iron ore at Paradip, on India's eastern coast, and was heading for Singapore when she began to list. She sank in roughly eight minutes.

Two survivors were pulled from life rafts in the days after the sinking. Twenty-two remain unaccounted for. Indian Coast Guard and Navy units are coordinating the search. As of 25 August, the search teams had located only an oil slick and scattered life rafts, with no sign of the missing crew.

Ocean Winner is a Panama-flagged bulk carrier with IMO number 9145530. She measured around 70,000 deadweight tonnes. The crew included Chinese, Myanmar and Bangladeshi nationals. No distress signal was broadcast before she went under.

Activity around the Bay of Bengal grid near Paradip rose sharply on MarineRadar in the days following the sinking, with the region registering a 3.0x jump in lookups compared to the prior period.

India's search and rescue forces continue covering the area. The outcome for 22 crew members remains unknown.