4 rescued from icy sea after daylong search; 5 dead, 2 missing off Alaska

Four members of a fishing crew were found safe in a life raft in 17-foot seas Wednesday afternoon, capping a tense and difficult day in which searchers found the bodies of five other crew of a vessel that flooded off Alaska's Aleutian Islands the previous evening.

The search for two other crew continued Wednesday night.

Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Levi Read said the four crew rescued amid snow squalls Wednesday "were actually in very good condition and in good spirits," and asked to stay aboard the helicopter and help with the search. They did so until the helicopter had to turn around to refuel. They were then taken to Adak Island to receive medical care.

This is the second time this year that Coast Guard crews have launched a major rescue and recovery operation involving fishing-industry crews in the Bering Sea. An effort on Easter Sunday saved the lives of 42 of 47 crew of the sunken Alaska Ranger.

The Katmai's 11-person crew included men from the Northwest, including the Seattle area, according to a spokesman for the vessel's owners, who have not yet released the names of any crew.

"Right now, getting information to these families is the most important thing," said Jeff Debell, the spokesman.

The Katmai ran into trouble as the vessel, headed toward the port of Dutch Habor with a load of cod, reported flooding in a stern compartment, according to a radio call picked up by another vessel. The Coast Guard did not pick up any mayday call, but the remote location may have made such a call hard to hear.

"It's hard to say whether they tried or not," Read 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 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 Coast Guard did pick up a locator signal from an emergency beacon — designed to begin broadcasting once submerged — about 1 a.m. Wednesday.

The first Coast Guard 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.

The Coast Guard reported 10- to 15-foot seas in the area, which worsened as the day went on, with winds from the north at 34 mph. A mix of rain and snow was falling.

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

Read said "good Samaritan" boats — Courageous and Patricia Lee — arrived Wednesday afternoon and pulled the bodies of four others from the water. Courageous also recovered two empty survival suits, fishing gear and a life ring belonging to the Katmai.

Coast Guard records indicate the Katmai is owned by Katmai Fisheries, which is controlled by Lloyd Cannon — a pioneer of Alaska fisheries in Kodiak who now lives in Edmonds — and his family.

Cannon once was an owner in All-Alaskan Seafood, a company that both caught and processed fish. In 1990, All-Alaskan had more than 700 workers and revenue that climbed to more than $90 million, according to Alaska Business Monthly.

Cannon co-founded the company in 1976 and was an owner during the 1980s and '90s. This was a difficult time in the industry, with 30 or more crew industrywide often dying each year off Alaska. And the company had its own troubles, according to news reports in The Seattle Times and other publications:

• In 1988, the first mate of the company's 165-foot Pacific Apollo died after he was pulled into the ocean with a crab pot.

• About two years later, in October 1990, that same boat sank after taking on water in the engine room, killing three of the four on board.

• The company also suffered a 1994 fish-processing vessel fire that claimed one life and resulted in a National Transportation Safety Board investigation. The probe found a lack of training and poor safety standards aboard the 1945 vessel.

Cannon no longer is an owner in All-Alaskan, and now owns the Katmai with other family members, according to Coast Guard records.

Cannon could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

The Katmai — listed at 93 feet and 73 feet, depending on how measurements are taken — drops baited traps to catch cod, and then prepares the fish for freezing on board. It is one of the smaller vessels in what is known as the head-and-gut fleet, which must hire enough crew to harvest and then prepare fish for onboard processing.

Improving safety aboard these vessels has been a special focus of the Coast Guard in both Alaska and Seattle.

In 2001, the Arctic Rose, a Seattle-based head-and-gut vessel, went down off Alaska, claiming 15 lives in what ranks as the worst U.S. fishing-vessel tragedy.

The Arctic Rose disaster helped spur the Coast Guard to launch a new safety program that would involve more than 50 of these vessels. Under the program, Coast Guard inspectors look for weaknesses in the watertight integrity and stability of the vessels, and then may require vessel operators to patch corroded hulls and make other improvements.

Coast Guard officials say 37 out of the 53 vessels enrolled in the program have completed repairs and gained "certificates of compliance."

But the Katmai was never enrolled in that program, according to Coast Guard officials in Seattle, because it was involved in a special fishery that caught cod within a three-mile zone off the Alaska coasts, controlled by the state rather than the federal government.

The Katmai did pass two dockside safety inspections, one in 2006 and a more recent one this year, according to Coast Guard officials. Those inspections checked for survival suits and crew emergency training and other skills that would be required in a disaster.

The inspections did not check for signs of hull weakness or other issues that might trigger or exacerbate flooding, the Coast Guard officials said.

Seattle Times staff reporters Noelene Clark and Christine Clarridge contributed to this report.

Hal Bernton: 206-464-2581 or hbernton@seattletimes.com; Mike Carter: 206-464-3706 or mcarter@seattletimes.com; Christine Willmsen: 206-464-3261 or cwillmsen@seattletimes.com