Five people have gone missing and are feared to have died after a fishing vessel sank near Sutwik Island, Alaska, on Tuesday, December 31.
The incident occurred at approximately 22:00 local time when the 39-metre crab boat Scandies Rose with a crew of seven on board sank eight kilometres off Sutwik Island after having departed Dutch Harbor earlier that evening.
An MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter arrived at the scene after watchstanders at US Coast Guard Station Kodiak received a distress call from the crab boat. The helicopter's crew found two survivors adrift on a life raft and hoisted them aboard their aircraft.
A search effort involving six coast guard aircraft and the Hamilton-class cutter Mellon and covering an area of more than 3,600 square kilometres lasted well into the early evening of Wednesday, January 1. However, no trace of the five missing fishermen had been found by the time officials of the 17th Coast Guard District called off the search shortly after 18:00 local time.
Meanwhile, the two survivors have since been brought to hospital in Kodiak and are reported to be in stable condition.
