ANKERAGE, Alaska — A search is underway for five people believed to be on board a fishing vessel that capsized in rough seas in the Gulf of Alaska has been suspended, the Coast Guard said Monday.
The search lasted almost a day and covered more than 108 square nautical miles.
“We are saddened and in solidarity with the friends and family of those we have been unable to locate over the past 24 hours,” Chief Warrant Officer James Koon, search and rescue mission coordinator for the Southeast Alaska Coast Guard Sector, said in a speech . statement.
The Coast Guard began the search after the crew of the Wind Walker sent a Mayday call at 12:10 a.m. Sunday reporting that the 50-foot boat was overturning near Point Couverden, southwest of Juneau. The Coast Guard attempted to get more information while mobilizing a response, but the crew did not respond, according to a Coast Guard news release.
The state ferry Hubbard heard the transmission and reached the scene first, followed by a Coast Guard MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter and a response boat, the news release said. A winter storm warning remained in effect as responders faced heavy snow, winds of up to 60 miles per hour and 6-foot seas.
Two Coast Guard cutters – the Healy and the Douglas Denman – joined the search. Rescuers found seven empty cold-water immersion suits and two flashing lights in the water, but no other sign of the boat or its crew.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
ANKERAGE, Alaska (AP) —
Seven empty survival suits were found, but there is no sign of the crew of five people who made a distress call their fishing vessel capsized during a storm in the frigid waters of the Gulf of Alaska, a Coast Guard official said Monday.
Four of the suits were in a bay not far from where the fishing vessel Wind Walker was last heard early Sunday morning in southeastern Alaska. Three other suits were located on the shore of the bay, Coast Guard Petty Officer John Hightower said. Searchers also found the Wind Walker’s GPS beacon, along with two strobe lights, narrowing the search area.
However, no wreckage from the ship was observed, Hightower said. No life raft was found and there is no indication the crew deployed one, he said. It is also unknown how many immersion suits the Wind Walker had.
Two Coast Guard ships continued the search on Monday near Point Couverden, where the ship is believed to have overturned. The point is about 20 miles southwest of Juneau, among the islands of the state’s Inside Passage, a popular cruise ship route in the summer.
One of the Coast Guard cutters, the icebreaker Healy, uses underwater sonar, Hightower said.
“They’ve been searching all night and unfortunately no physical sign of the ship has been found yet,” Hightower said.
The crew of the Wind Walker sent out a Mayday call that the 50-foot ship was tipping over about 12:10 a.m. Sunday, in heavy snow, winds up to 60 miles per hour and 6-foot (1.8 meter) seas.
But the Coast Guard’s efforts to get more information from the crew went unanswered, according to a Coast Guard news release.
The five crew members were seen just hours earlier by a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration crew who boarded the Wind Walker on Saturday for a routine check, Hightower said.
The crew of the Hubbard, an Alaska state ferry, heard the Coast Guard’s urgent maritime broadcast and arrived on scene within an hour. A Coast Guard boat and an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter also responded, and the helicopter crew spotted the cold-water survival suits from the air near Spasski Bay, about 10 miles southwest of Point Couverden. Four of the immersion suits were in the waters of the bay and three were seen on land, Hightower said.
The packs were empty and it was not immediately clear whether they had been worn, he said.
The full-body suits are made of a neoprene-like material “that you can put on over your clothes very quickly and easily, and it’s intended to help you survive in cold water,” Hightower said. They also have a flotation device inside them, along with an inflatable cushion, so a person in the water can rest their head and stay afloat.
The area searched by the Healy and another cutter, the Douglas Denman, is quite small because they had the GPS coordinates of the Wind Walker’s distress beacon, Hightower said.
Since the crew reported that the ship was overturning, it is possible that it capsized and sank.
“That seems most likely, but we’re not trying to rule anything out because we haven’t been able to confirm it ourselves,” he said.
A whopping 17 inches of snow fell in Juneau this weekendand the water temperature was about 45 degrees Fahrenheit (7.22 degrees Celsius), the National Weather Service in Juneau said.