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• Investigation into fishing boat sinking continues 4/15/08

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Coast Guard ends search for man missing after fishing boat sank off Alaska

By Steve Quinn
Associated Press

JUNEAU, Alaska -- The Coast Guard said Tuesday that it suspended the search for the lone crew member still missing after a fishing vessel sank in frigid waters off Alaska's Aleutian Islands.

The crew member, Satashi Konno of Japan, was wearing a survival suit when the ship went down Sunday, but officials said it would have been difficult for him to sustain the dangerous 36-degree temperatures in the Bering Sea. The search ended late Monday.

"We searched long and hard for Mr. Konno and unfortunately have been unable to locate any sign of the Fishing Master from the Alaska Ranger," Coast Guard Rear Adm. Gene Brooks said in a statement. The decision to end the search "was a very difficult one," he said.

Konno perhaps fell into the water from a rescue basket, and officials were investigating.

"The Coast Guard can't make an official assumption of the cause of death for Mr. Konno," Chief Petty Officer Barry Lane said Tuesday. "The temperatures and the weather conditions were very, very unfavorable and very, very dangerous."

The last group of the ship's 42 survivors arrived in Dutch Harbor overnight on a Coast Guard cutter. Only one, Alex Olivares, spoke as he and other crew members were hustled from the ship to waiting cabs.

"Glad to be alive," he said.

Four people whose bodies were recovered earlier died of hypothermia, including captain Eric Peter Jacobsen. They spent up to six hours in the frigid water after the vessel began to sink, apparently unable to make it to life rafts, said Alaska Wildlife Trooper Sgt. Greg Garcia.

Troopers' interviews with members of the ship's sister vessel, the Alaska Warrior, which assisted in the rescue efforts, indicate that the captain likely took care of others before himself, Garcia said, which could be the reason so many people survived.

"I don't know if there wasn't enough room in the rafts or not for them, but it sounds to me that the hierarchy wanted to assure everybody else is saved," he said.