Fifteen crew members have been rescued from a Taiwanese fishing boat that caught fire 670km off the coast of Carnarvon on Tuesday night.
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority detected a Taiwanese-coded distress beacon signal from the fishing vessel about 9.30pm but were unable to establish contact.
The AMSA's Joint Rescue Coordination Centre sent a Dornier aircraft to investigate. Despite battling strong head winds, the aircraft arrived on the scene at 5.30am on Wednesday and found a vessel on fire, with several people seen on the bow of the vessel.
The Dornier dropped a life raft to the boat, which was retrieved by people on board.
The AMSA also issued a broadcast to ships in the area, and a United Kingdom-flagged oil tanker responded, arriving on the scene at 8am and using its rescue boat to pick up the 15 stranded crew members, who were all uninjured.
The rescued crew will be taken to their next stop in Indonesia.
