By Shikin Louis
WHEN Sarawakian Royal Malaysian Navy (TLDM) special forces member Laskar Kanan PAP (FKL) Michael Coccon Johen landed in the South China Sea after a parachute jump went off course, he immediately knew reaching Pulau Layang-Layang (Swallow Reef) would be far more difficult than expected.
The 27-year-old Bidayuh from Kampung Bobak Sejinjang in Singai had been trained to survive in some of the harshest conditions imaginable. Yet nothing could have prepared him for the vastness of the open sea as he found himself alone in the gathering darkness, with relentless waves and strong currents pulling him farther away from the island about 300km north of Sabah’s coast that he was desperately trying to reach.
For the next 15 hours, Coccon would rely on his training, a flotation jacket, a compass and sheer determination to stay alive as he fought the sea and searched for a way back to safety.
The jump
His ordeal began at about 4.30pm on Aug 12, 2026, when Coccon and five fellow personnel from the Navy’s elite PASKAL unit carried out their second parachute jump of the day near Pulau Layang-Layang in the South China Sea.
The team had already completed one jump at around 2pm. Before the second jump, they checked the wind conditions with the pilot, who reported upper-level winds of about 18 knots and lower-level winds of around 10 knots.
“Those conditions were within our standard operating procedure, which allowed upper-level winds below 30 knots and lower-level winds below 15 knots, giving the team sufficient reason to proceed with the jump,” he told reporters during an interview in Bau on Aug 25.
The six personnel exited the aircraft at 10,000 feet and deployed their military freefall parachutes at around 9,200 feet. Initially, their canopies were able to glide towards the designated landing point on Pulau Layang-Layang.
However, at about 4,000ft, wind conditions changed dramatically.
“The parachutes could no longer move forward towards the island. The wind was holding us back,” Coccon recalled.
Instead of continuing their glide, the parachutes began descending almost vertically, leaving the team unable to reach their intended landing zone.
Shortly after 5pm, all six personnel had landed in the sea rather than on the island, with Coccon estimating that he was about three to four miles from Pulau Layang-Layang.
The sea was already rough, with waves reaching what he described as Stage 4 conditions. Safety boats assigned to support the exercise were unable to approach immediately due to the challenging weather.
Despite finding himself in the open sea, Coccon said he did not panic, which he attributed to his training as a PASKAL member and his familiarity with operating in the water.
Into the water
For about an hour after entering the sea, Coccon kept his parachute with him as it remained afloat on the surface.
The parachute’s reserve canopy helped prevent it from sinking immediately, allowing it to stay buoyant beside him.
However, after about an hour in the water, the parachute lines began wrapping around his legs, prompting him to remove his shoes so he could free himself from the entangling lines.
Before releasing the parachute, Coccon noticed the compass attached to it and removed it, knowing that it could help him maintain his bearing towards Pulau Layang-Layang.
Looking towards the horizon, he could just make out the faint silhouette of the island through the rough seas and fading light. That glimpse of land gave him a target and Coccon began swimming towards the island.
What seemed like a manageable swim at first would soon turn into a gruelling battle against currents that steadily pushed him farther from safety.
The long night
As evening turned into night, Pulau Layang-Layang became increasingly difficult to distinguish. With no moon above him, the sea around him was plunged into near-total darkness.
His only points of reference were the distant lights from the island and vessels involved in the search operation.
“I kept swimming, but the sea continued to work against me, pushing me backwards each time I tried to gain ground towards the island,” he said.
By around 7pm, Coccon could see naval vessels searching for the six missing personnel, while two helicopters, one from the Royal Malaysian Air Force and another from the Navy, were also combing the area.
He had a flare and activated it in an attempt to alert rescuers, but the flare lasted only about 15 seconds and Coccon believed it had gone unnoticed, possibly because of the rough waves and poor visibility.
Undeterred, he continued swimming towards the distant lights of the island. At about 10pm, he saw another flare suddenly illuminated the darkness.
This time, the flare had been activated by one of his comrades, and Coccon could see a vessel moved towards the signal as the search operation began closing in on the missing personnel.
By around 11pm, all five of Coccon’s comrades had been located and rescued, but he remained somewhere in the open sea, still unseen and still trying to reach the island.
He continued swimming towards the distant lights of Pulau Layang-Layang, but after hours of fighting the waves, he began noticing that he was making almost no progress despite the effort he was putting in.
A Navy vessel far to his right became another reference point, and Coccon watched it as he swam, only to realise that the vessel appeared to remain in almost the same position.
That was when he understood that he was battling a powerful current.
“I kept swimming, but I wasn’t moving,” he recalled.
Sleeping at sea
Understanding that exhaustion could become his greatest enemy, Coccon made a crucial decision. Rather than continue fighting a current he could not overcome, he chose to conserve his energy.
Finding a way to rest, however, proved difficult. Each time he closed his eyes, waves washed over his face, forcing seawater into his mouth.
Coccon was wearing a small flotation jacket around his neck, rather than a full-body flotation vest, leaving much of his body exposed to the elements.
He said he swallowed seawater several times while trying to rest, until he remembered the cap he had kept attached to his belt after the jump.
He pulled the cap over his face and, with the flotation jacket keeping him afloat and the cap shielding his face from the waves, he finally found a position that allowed him to rest. He managed to sleep intermittently from about 5am until 7am.
The final push
When Coccon awoke at around 7am on Aug 13, daylight had returned, but it brought a new problem: the lights that had guided him through the night were gone, and he could no longer see Pulau Layang-Layang clearly.
He turned around in the water, scanning the horizon in all directions until he spotted a vessel moving some distance away to his right.
He began swimming towards it, but after about 15 minutes, he realised the vessel remained frustratingly far away. Fearing he would waste precious energy chasing an unreachable target, he stopped and rested again, eventually drifting back to sleep.
It was during that brief rest that he heard the sound of an engine. Opening his eyes and lifting the cap from his face, he saw a vessel directly ahead.
Although still 30 to 40 metres away, it was the closest object he had seen since entering the water.
“There is still a chance,” he thought.
Rather than waiting for the vessel to come closer, Coccon removed his flotation jacket, tied it around his waist and began swimming towards the vessel because he feared that if it continued moving, the waves could carry him away and the crew might miss him.
As he approached the vessel, the crew raised the alarm for “man overboard”, although Coccon said he was not sure whether they had immediately recognised him as a person because, from a distance, he could have appeared to be floating debris.
He continued waving towards the crew while swimming closer, until they threw a lifebuoy into the water. Coccon grabbed it.
At 7.55am on Aug 13, the crew of KD Yu pulled him aboard, ending his roughly 15-hour ordeal in the open sea.
Once on board, he was given food, allowed to rest and helped to clean up.
Only later did he learn how far he had drifted. The waves and currents had carried him more than seven nautical miles from Pulau Layang-Layang.
He was subsequently taken to a jetty and reunited with his comrades before being flown to Kota Kinabalu for treatment at Hospital Angkatan Tentera Wilayah Kota Kinabalu (HATWKK).
Although Coccon said he felt alright when he was rescued, doctors later gave him intravenous fluids after finding signs of dehydration. He remained in hospital for two days before returning to Kuching on two weeks’ leave. — DayakDaily
END OF PART ONE
EDITOR’S NOTE: A two-part series on Laskar Kanan PAP (FKL) Michael Coccon Johen’s 15-hour ordeal and survival in the South China Sea after a parachute jump went off course near Pulau Layang-Layang, Sabah. Read Part 2 here: (COMING SOON)
