Man found dead after going overboard from fishing boat off Scottish coast

Lifeboat services attended the scene after receiving mayday call at 3:20am

An RNLI lifeboat attends a call off UK shores in 2020 (PA)

A man has been found dead after falling overboard from a fishing boat off the coast of Scotland.

His body was recovered from the North Sea in the early hours of Thursday morning, according to police.

A coastguard helicopter and lifeboat services attended the scene after receiving a Mayday call from the boat at 3:20am.

Police were made aware that a body had been recovered by helicopter and flown to a hospital in Lerwick, a town in the Shetland Islands, at around 4am.

A spokesperson for Police Scotland said: “We can confirm a man has died following an incident on board a fishing boat.

“We are working with the Marine Accident Investigation Branch to establish the full circumstances.”

The spokesperson added that all other crew members aboard the boat were uninjured.

A coastguard spokesperson said that they received the Maydall call “around 30 nautical miles south-east of Sumburgh Head”.

She added that, as well as the HM Coastguard search and rescue helicopter and RNLI lifeboat, “other vessels in the nearby area responded to the Mayday broadcast from the vessel.”

Police are expected to submit a report to public prosecutors in Scotland in due course.