The group was found on uninhabited Erikub Atoll, 53 miles northwest of Maloelap, their home atoll.
Details were sketchy about how they were found, but after a report was received in Majuro at about noon on Monday, the U.S. Coast Guard C-130 search plane already in the air was asked to fly over Erikub to confirm that the fishermen were there.
“The C-130 flew over Erikub and it saw the men on the beach,” said Michael Slinger, whose company Atoll Marine Aquaculture owns the 20-foot boat and employs most of the men who were found Monday. “All were found safe and alive on Erikub,” Slinger said.
Erikub, which is famous in the Marshall Islands as a turtle spawning location, was within the parameters of the drift pattern prepared by the Coast Guard to guide the air and sea search for the fishermen from Maloelap, an isolated atoll about 120 miles north of the capital, Majuro.
Boats that had been searching in the ocean since Sunday were diverted to collect the fishermen and their boat from Erikub, according to Slinger.
