Boat group located on northern coast
Five men have reportedly been rescued by the Australian Border Force from a remote beach after they were spotted by a commercial helicopter pilot.
The possible illegal boat arrivals were picked up by authorities after a pilot observed SOS scrawled in the sand, according to The Australian.
Footage posted by North Australian Helicopters on social media on Thursday shows the group on the 'northern coast'.
North Australian Helicopters said the men spoke no English and appeared to have been there for 'quite a while'.
In a statement, Immigration Minister Tony Burke said the government would not 'confirm, or comment on, operational matters'.
'There has never been a successful people smuggling venture under our government, and that remains true,' he said.
'When someone tries to arrive without a visa they are detained and then deported.' North Australian Helicopters claim the group washed up on a northern Australian beach in April 2025. Supplied. Credit: News Corp Australia
Liberal campaign spokesman James Paterson described the reported incident as 'deeply concerning'.
'Regardless of whether they are people smugglers or illegal fishers, no one should be able to reach the Australian mainland undetected,' Senator Paterson said.
'Once again, we have seen the Albanese government relying on private businesses alerting the government to serious security concerns, like when a Virgin Australia pilot was the first to alert the government to a live fire exercise in the Tasman Sea.'
According to the latest update on Operation Sovereign Borders, published two days ago, Australian authorities responded to one maritime people smuggling venture in the month of March.
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A former correspondent for Reuters and the BBC, and an informant for the United Kingdom's MI6 foreign spy agency, Forsyth made his name by using his experiences as a reporter in Paris to pen the story of a failed assassination plot on Charles de Gaulle. The Day of the Jackal, in which an English assassin, played in the film by Edward Fox, is hired by French paramilitaries angry at de Gaulle's withdrawal from Algeria, was published in 1971 after Forsyth found himself penniless in London. Written in just 35 days, the book was rejected by a host of publishers who worried that the story was flawed and would not sell as de Gaulle had not been assassinated. De Gaulle died in 1970 from a ruptured aorta while playing Solitaire. But Forsyth's hurricane-paced thriller complete with journalistic-style detail and brutal sub-plots of lust, betrayal and murder was an instant hit. The once poor journalist became a wealthy writer of fiction. 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After that, The Dogs of War in 1974 is about a group of white mercenaries hired by a British mining magnate to kill the mad dictator of an African republic - based on Equatorial Guinea's Francisco Macias Nguema - and replace him with a puppet. The New York Times said at the time that the novel was "pitched at the level of a suburban Saturday night movie audience" and that it was "informed with a kind of post‐imperial condescension toward the black man". Divorced from Carole Cunningham in 1988, he married Sandy Molloy in 1994. But he lost a fortune in an investment scam and had to write more novels to support himself. He had two sons - Stuart and Shane - with his first wife. Novelist Frederick Forsyth, who authored best-selling thrillers such as The Day of the Jackal and The Dogs of War, has died aged 86, his publisher says. A former correspondent for Reuters and the BBC, and an informant for the United Kingdom's MI6 foreign spy agency, Forsyth made his name by using his experiences as a reporter in Paris to pen the story of a failed assassination plot on Charles de Gaulle. The Day of the Jackal, in which an English assassin, played in the film by Edward Fox, is hired by French paramilitaries angry at de Gaulle's withdrawal from Algeria, was published in 1971 after Forsyth found himself penniless in London. Written in just 35 days, the book was rejected by a host of publishers who worried that the story was flawed and would not sell as de Gaulle had not been assassinated. De Gaulle died in 1970 from a ruptured aorta while playing Solitaire. But Forsyth's hurricane-paced thriller complete with journalistic-style detail and brutal sub-plots of lust, betrayal and murder was an instant hit. The once poor journalist became a wealthy writer of fiction. "I never intended to be a writer at all," Forsyth later wrote in his memoire, The Outsider - My Life in Intrigue. "After all, writers are odd creatures, and if they try to make a living at it, even more so." So influential was the novel that Venezuelan militant revolutionary Illich Ramirez Sanchez, was dubbed "Carlos the Jackal". Forsyth presented himself as a cross between Ernest Hemingway and John le Carre - both action man and Cold War spy - but delighted in turning around the insult that he was a literary lightweight. "I am lightweight but popular. My books sell," he once said. His books, fantastical plots that almost rejoiced in the cynicism of an underworld of spies, criminals, hackers and killers, sold more than 75 million copies. Behind the swashbuckling bravado, though, there were hints of sadness. He later spoke of turning inwards to his imagination as a lonely only child during and after World War II. 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After that, The Dogs of War in 1974 is about a group of white mercenaries hired by a British mining magnate to kill the mad dictator of an African republic - based on Equatorial Guinea's Francisco Macias Nguema - and replace him with a puppet. The New York Times said at the time that the novel was "pitched at the level of a suburban Saturday night movie audience" and that it was "informed with a kind of post‐imperial condescension toward the black man". Divorced from Carole Cunningham in 1988, he married Sandy Molloy in 1994. But he lost a fortune in an investment scam and had to write more novels to support himself. He had two sons - Stuart and Shane - with his first wife.
