Spanish coastguard rescue planes are operating without the search radars that help to save lives at sea, as Spain struggles to deal with the largest ever influx of migrants on its southern shores.

Ismael Furió, head of the the workers’ committee at Spain’s Coastguard, said vital radars on all of the four coastguard planes in Spain, and specifically the two covering the Mediterranean area, have been out of action for the past year.

A record 769 migrants died making the crossing from North Africa last year, as the Strait of Gibraltar sea path overtook the Aegean and Libyan routes into Europe with more than 58,000 arrivals, according to the International Organization for Migration.

Mr Furio said an “atrocity” is being committed as bureaucratic problems compound a lack of resources to cause greater numbers of deaths at sea.

“It is almost pointless going out in those planes to look for a migrant boat amidst the waves. Those radars allow us to scan 20 to 30 miles, while with the naked eye you can cover about two miles, and even then the chances of seeing something are practically nil,” Mr Furió told The Telegraph.

Two of the radars have been sent for repair in the United States, but the US administration is reportedly refusing to allow the equipment to be re-exported to Spain because Airbus Defence and Space, the company that supplies the radars to the coastguard service, is currently subject to an embargo.