Search & Rescue

Nearly 70 passengers and crew were evacuated from a small cruise ship on Monday morning after an engine room fire disabled UnCruise’s Wilderness Discoverer in Glacier Bay.

The fire was reported to the U.S. Coast Guard around 7:30 a.m.

“By the time we got there, they had put the fire out,” Coast Guard Petty Officer Ian Gray said. “All of the passengers were taken off and were in good health.”

The Sapphire Princess, a larger Princess Cruises ship that was sailing nearby, responded to radio calls from the Wilderness Discoverer and used one of its lifeboats to bring over the 51 passengers and 16 crew members. A handful of crew members stayed behind on the ship, which is being towed to a shipyard in Ketchikan.

Local and federal authorities will examine the damage in the coming days. 

“Once it’s moored up at the pier, we’ll start the investigation process,” Gray said. “We’ll get Coast Guard personnel aboard and probably more than likely the Alaska State Troopers.” 

A different UnCruise ship picked up the Wilderness Discoverer’s passengers and brought them back to the company’s headquarters in Juneau on Monday afternoon. UnCruise representatives said all of the passengers would get full refunds.

Correction: 51 passengers and 16 crew members were taken off the Wilderness Discoverer.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Alaska State Troopers on Wednesday recovered the bodies of two of the five victims of last Sunday’s charter boat sinking in Sitka.

One passenger and the boat’s captain have yet to be found.

The victims identified by troopers on Wednesday evening are 53-year old Danielle Agcaoili and her sister, 56-year old Brandi Tyau.

Their bodies have been sent to the State Medical Examiner’s office in Anchorage to confirm their identities.

The body of Danielle Agcaoili’s husband, 57-year old Maury Agcaoili, was recovered on Monday offshore of Low Island, not far from the partially-submerged charter fishing vessel in which the group had been traveling.

A fourth passenger, 61-year old Robert Solis, as well as the boat’s captain, 32-year old Morgan Robidou of Sitka, have not been found, despite an extensive search on Monday that covered over 800 square miles.

Solis and Tyau were visiting Sitka together from California. The Agcaoili’s were visiting from Waipahu, a community on the island of Oahu.

Large swell and heavy surf on the shore of Low Island have impaired efforts to salvage the 30-foot aluminum charter vessel. Sitka-based Hanson Maritime is leading recovery efforts.

One person is dead, and another four are missing and presumed lost after their charter fishing vessel sank in rough seas near Sitka on Sunday. An extensive air and sea search turned up no sign of the missing individuals. The Coast Guard suspended operations on Monday evening.

On the evening of May 28, Kingfisher Charters notified the Coast Guard that one of its boats was overdue, with five people on board.

The boat had last been seen near Cape Edgecumbe. Coast Guard Public Affairs Officer Ian Gray said an air crew found it on Sunday evening partially submerged near Low Island, about 10 miles southwest of Sitka.

“We launched Air Station Sitka along with Air Station Kodiak to conduct search patterns. We discovered a half submerged vessel at around 6:03 p.m. Sunday night, and conducted search efforts to find the five individuals that were missing,” Gray said. “We located one in the water, an older adult male who was not wearing a personal flotation device, and he was deceased.”

The Coast Guard continued their search throughout the next day for the remaining four people who were missing from the boat, with a helicopter crew, a plane from Kodiak, the fast response cutter Douglas Denman, the Sitka Fire Department emergency response vessel, and several good Samaritan vessels on the scene. Over 20 hours, they scoured a wide area. Gray said the search was called off around 9:30 on Monday evening.

“It’s an unfortunate outcome,” Gray said. “The suspended case is always a hard decision to make…But after searching over 820 square [miles] for over 20 hours, those decisions were made, ultimately…our hearts go out to the families of the victims.”

Names of the victims have not been released to the public. An investigation into the accident is ongoing, but Gray says so far it doesn’t look like the vessel ran aground.

“The initial divers that dove on the boat to examine the vessel [said] it didn’t indicate that the vessel struck anything,” Gray said. “There wasn’t a big hole in the hull of the vessel that indicated that they struck anything to make it sink.”

After the search was called off, local marine salvage company Hanson Maritime took over salvage efforts, and was working to remove the boat from the water on Tuesday afternoon. The loss of five people aboard the charter vessel is the worst maritime tragedy in the area since a chartered float plane went down en route from Sitka to Warm Springs Bay in September, 2004. No sign of the plane, its pilot, or its four passengers has ever been found.

This story has been updated.

A 20-year-old Illinois man trapped in Turnagain Arm mud near Hope died Sunday, Alaska State Troopers said.

According to a dispatch posted Monday morning, word reached troopers just before 6 p.m. that Zachary Porter was stuck in the tidal mud flats. Troopers, as well as Hope and Girdwood firefighters, responded to the call.

“Rescue efforts were unsuccessful, and (Porter) died at approximately 6:43 p.m. after being submerged by the incoming tide,” the dispatch said. It said rescue teams recovered Porter’s body around 6 a.m. Monday.

Troopers were gathering further details on the call Monday morning. Firefighters didn’t immediately return calls requesting additional information.

Quicksand-like mud along the arm can rapidly trap unsuspecting beachgoers, and sporadic cell phone reception can keep people from calling 911.

Porter’s death comes two weeks after fire crews saved a hooligan fisherman from the mud near the mouth of the Twentymile River. Firefighters also saved a surveyor trapped up to his waist near Tidewater Slough in November. Both rescues involved the use of a special tool, which can inject air and water into the mud around a person.

Responders have urged people to travel in groups on the mud, so someone can go for help if a member of the group gets stuck, and avoid remaining in one spot for long.

Mountaineering rangers rescued a climber on Saturday who had fallen from a 16,000-foot ridge on Denali late Friday night.

According to a Denali National Park and Preserve release, 24-year-old Tatsuto Hatanaka of Japan fell more than 1,000 feet from the mountain’s West Buttress to the Peters Glacier. Hatanaka’s climbing partner witnessed the fall but could not see or get to the place where he came to rest.

The Park Service sent its high altitude helicopter to look for Hatanaka, and the Alaska Rescue Coordination Center dispatched a C-130 plane. Hatanaka was spotted, but clouds prevented the helicopter from getting to him.

Park mountaineering rangers worked the rescue on the ground, and a ranger evacuated Hatanaka from around 15,000 feet early on Saturday.

Hatanaka suffered only minor injuries.

Petersburg police received a request for help last month after a 26-foot aluminum boat tipped onto its side near the south end of Kuiu Island. Two people were aboard, and both of them survived the sinking.

But they never actually called dispatch — the area where the vessel sank was far too remote for that. Instead, they were able to send a text — the first text the department received on an almost two-year-old system that allows users to text emergency dispatchers when they have limited cell reception.

Petersburg Police Chief Jim Kerr says dispatchers got the text at approximately 3 p.m. on April 30. The department was able to gather important details — like the user’s location, the health of the people aboard and even the state of their phone battery — in order to get them help.

“Our dispatch was able to get in contact with the [Alaska State] Troopers,” Kerr said. “[They] ultimately got in contact with the Coast Guard to get resources over there to help them out.”

Kerr said it was a celebratory moment for the dispatch team. In 2021, the Petersburg Police Department was approached by Third Signal, a 911 consulting company, about accepting texts for help. The department paid a one-time fee of $8,000 to implement the service.

“Living in this environment, the biggest benefit is where you end up in spots where you only have one bar,” said Kerr. “You can’t make a phone call, but you can send a text. So we thought that it would enhance the overall safety of this area for the people out there enjoying this country. This was the first legitimate use of it.”

Kerr wants to remind locals that they can still get help when they’re off the grid. The texting service is available if they end up in remote areas with limited service. Some of the latest iPhones can still make contact with a satellite when you can’t get a Wi-Fi signal or a lock on a cell tower. In neighboring Wrangell, emergency dispatch is also capable of receiving text messages to 911 — though the department hasn’t received one yet.