Brazil’s Navy Defends Its Response to a Capsizing

The Brazilian Navy on Sunday defended its response to a shipwreck that left dozens of teenage students from around the world adrift on the ocean for two nights.

It took about 19 hours for the navy to deploy a search aircraft after it received a distress signal from the S. V. Concordia on Wednesday, but officials said that was in line with standard procedure.

All 48 students and 16 crew members were safely rescued Friday, nearly 40 hours after the sailing ship capsized in the Atlantic several hundred miles off the Brazilian coast. The students were participating in the Class Afloat program, based in Canada.

A navy spokeswoman, Maria Padilha, said that naval responders received a distress signal about 10 p.m. local time on Wednesday and immediately tried to make radio contact with the vessel. They also communicated with nearby ships and aircraft to see if they could spot anything wrong in the area, Ms. Padilha said.

When efforts to communicate with the ship failed, the navy reached out to school officials in Canada, but not until about 10 a.m. Thursday. The naval officials also had no luck getting the ship’s captain and crew members on the radio or through e-mail messages, prompting the navy to ask for an air force search operation in the general location of the distress signal.

An aircraft left about 5 p.m. local time and about three hours later spotted the students and crew on rafts 300 miles off the coast.