Searchers find 4 survivors, 3 bodies from missing boat; 4 seamen still missing off Alaska

Alaska Coast Guard searchers rescued four survivors from the frigid Bering Sea from a Washington-owned fishing boat that apparently sank in stormy weather off the Aleutian Islands. Three bodies have been recovered and four seamen are still missing.

Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Levi Read reported shortly after 5:30 p.m. that rescuers "were pulling four survivors from the water as we speak."

Read said a "good samaritan" boat that arrived on site about 3 p.m. pulled the body of a second man from the water. Its crew also recovered two empty survival suits, fishing gear and a life ring belonging to the missing fishing vessel Katmai, which had a crew of 11.

Another "good samaritan" boat recovered a third body about 5:30 p.m.

Crew members include men from the Northwest, including the Seattle area, according to a company spokesman.

Levi Read said the first dead seaman was spotted in high seas shortly after 11 a.m. The man was wearing a survival suit. The body has been taken to an island about 1,300 miles southwest of Anchorage.

The suit bore the name of the Katmai, a 93-foot fishing vessel whose emergency locator beacon was triggered around 1 a.m. The devices can be activated by hand or automatically begin broadcasting when they are submerged. The device relays the location of the beacon via satellite to the Coast Guard.

Martin Morin, who works at Katmai Fisheries, said the vessel's owner is waiting for word from the Coast Guard.

The Katmai is the only vessel the company owns, said Katmai chief financial officer Jeff Debell.

It was fishing for cod with pot gear and was heading back to the major fishing port of Dutch Harbor to unload its haul when it disappeared, Debell said. He was unsure how long the vessel had been at sea.

The company would not release the names of the captain or others on board.

Company officials were holding out hope that the crew would be found safe, he said.

"We've been waiting for a couple of hours since they've been on site and we don't know anything at this point other than to wait," Debell said.

Read said a C-130 transport from Air Station Kodiak was on site, along with a HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter, which recovered the dead seaman. Another Alaska Air National Guard C-130 was on its way to join the search, he said.

Read said the Coast Guard had received an e-mail from another vessel, the Blue Ballard, which reported that it had been in contact with the Katmai Tuesday evening. The Katmai had reported that it had lost steering and was taking on water in its lazarette, an enclosed area in the stern of a vessel that accesses the rudder and steerage equipment, Read said.

The petty officer said two "good Samaritan" vessels, the Patricia Lee and the Courageous, were en route to the search area, located about 100 miles west of Adak Island on the southern side of the Aleutian archipelago, some 1,300 miles southwest from Anchorage.

The Katmai was en route to Dutch Harbor on Unalaska Island, Read said.

The first plane arrived at the site shortly after 5 a.m. and spotted the locator beacon and an empty survival suit in the water, both equipped with flashing strobe lights.

Searchers also spotted the two rescue rafts dropped by the airplane. Both were empty.

The agency did not receive a mayday call from the vessel, but given its remote location, one may not have been heard.

"It's hard to say whether they tried or not," Read said.

The Coast Guard reported 10 to 15-foot seas in the area with winds from the north at 34 mph. The area had a mix of rain and snow.

Dutch Harbor is 800 miles southwest of Anchorage and about 610 miles southwest of Kodiak.

Information from The Associated Press, The Anchorage Daily News and Seattle Times staff reporter Christine Clarridge is included in this report.