ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Two men died and a third was missing after a commercial fishing boat capsized south of the Alaska Peninsula.
A fourth crewman was plucked Wednesday from the North Pacific and was in critical condition.
An air search for the missing man resumed Thursday, the Coast Guard said.
The 49-foot, 50-ton Ocean Challenger, whose home port is Adak in the Aleutian Islands, disappeared about 60 miles south of Sand Point, a community on Popof Island off the tip of the Alaska Peninsula.
The survivor, 28-year-old Kevin Ferrell of Lynchburg, Va., was the only person wearing a survival suit, the Coast Guard said. He was hoisted to safety by a Coast Guard helicopter.
The bodies of skipper David “Cowboy” Hasselquist, 51, of Hoonah, Alaska, and crewman Walter Foster, 26, of Westport, Wash., were pulled from the water.
The missing man, Steve Esparza, 26, of Kodiak, was not wearing a survival suit, the Coast Guard said.
The Ocean Challenger had been fishing for black cod near the Sanak Islands and was traveling back to Sand Point when it disappeared, said vessel owner Barry McKee.
Officials said they did not know what caused the boat to capsize. Residents in Sand Point, a city of 940 about 570 miles southwest of Anchorage, said the weather has been severe.
“The weather has been day-to-day a moving target,” said Trident Seafood cannery manager Armand Audette. “On Tuesday, it changed very radically. Right now our harbor is chock-full with boats because of the weather.”
The Coast Guard reported 29 mph winds with 20-foot seas and an air temperature of 48 degrees.
Just before 10 a.m. Wednesday, a 600-foot car carrier, the Overseas Joyce, heard a nearby boat send out a mayday, the Coast Guard said. The freighter was close enough to see the Ocean Challenger capsize and the crew throw a lifeboat out, the Coast Guard said.
The Coast Guard sent a helicopter, a C-130 airplane and the 378-foot cutter Munro. The first helicopter, a Jayhawk, arrived about an hour after the distress call.
The Jayhawk lowered a basket and hoisted Ferrell and the bodies of Hasselquist and Foster. Ferrell was taken to the Cold Bay Clinic about 50 miles away, then to an Anchorage hospital.
Coast Guard C-130 pilot Lt. Jerred Williams told the Anchorage Daily News he arrived on scene in the afternoon with a second crew to look for the missing man.
“The waves were so high you actually got white caps at the top of the wave,” he said. “And, then, with the wind streaking across the blue water, and the white turbulence everywhere, it made it very challenging to find a person in the water.”
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