MENU
MENU
Posted in Washington Maritime News on October 1, 2012
LaPUSH, Wash. — A commercial fisherman who went missing after the fishing vessel he was on sank off the coast of LaPush on Friday morning, September 28, is presumed dead. The Coast Guard has not released his name.
The fishing vessel Maverick as it appeared in 2005. The Maverick collided with another vessel and sank on September 26, 2012.Photo credit: Lonnie Archibald/for Peninsula Daily News
Petty Officer Nathan Bradshaw, Coast Guard spokesman in Seattle told the media that Coast Guard rescue crews have called off the search. A Coast Guard helicopter based at Coast Guard Air Station/Sector Field Office Port Angeles on Ediz Hook conducted the last search of the missing man on Saturday Sept 29.
Map showing location of la Push, WA in the northwest corner of Washington state.
Bradshaw said that based on the circumstances of the sinking and the amount of time the missing man has been in the water, Coast Guard officials are considering the man deceased.
The missing man was one of four crew members on the 40-foot commercial fishing vessel Maverick, which sank early Friday morning following a collision with the 90-foot fishing vessel Viking Storm roughly 30 miles off the coast of LaPush. The crew aboard the 90-foot vessel was able to rescue three of the four crewmen of the Maverick.
Peninsula Daily News reports:
A Coast Guard motor lifeboat transferred the three survivors, described as in good condition Saturday, from a Coast Guard cutter on the scene of the collision to the Coast Guard slip at the Quileute Harbor Marina in LaPush, Bradshaw said.
The owner of the Maverick, Port Angeles resident Darby Dickerson, was one of the three crewman who survived the collision, said Gene Harrison, the assistant harbor master at the Quileute Harbor Marina, where the survivors were dropped off by the Coast Guard at about 4 p.m. Friday. Harrison’s brother-in-law also fished on the Maverick and was also returned safely to LaPush, Harrison said.
The incident remains under investigation at this time.
Published by maritime lawyer Gordon, Elias & Seely, LLP