The Coast Guard is searching for a missing crewman from the fishing vessel “Swift.” The 34-foot boat is reportedly based in Juneau, but state records show it registered to a Sitka captain.
The Coast Guard received a call for help shortly after midnight Tuesday.
The 57-foot Pacific Horizon discovered the Swift in Icy Strait. Crew members found no one aboard, and notified Coast Guard Sector Juneau. The Coast Guard reported the Swift’s position at about 40 miles west of Juneau.
A helicopter crew from Coast Guard Air Station Sitka found one of the Swift’s two crewmen on a beach, near his overturned skiff. The other member of the crew remains missing. The Sitka helicopter, as well as a response boat from Juneau and the Coast Guard Cutter Liberty are aiding in the search. The Civil Air Patrol joined search and rescue efforts Tuesday morning.
The missing crewman is reportedly wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt and black rain pants. Further details on the crewmen, including their names and ages, were not yet released by the Coast Guard.
National Weather Service meteorologist Geri Swanson says at the time the Coast Guard received the call for help, Icy Strait was experiencing 15-to-20-knot winds under cloudy skies. But earlier in the evening, the region experienced a series of moderate thunderstorms, including winds up to 37 knots. The National Weather Service issued storm warnings to mariners throughout the evening, urging them to find safe harbor.
Original story at June 18, 2013 6:20 a.m.
The Coast Guard was out searching this morning for a man who went overboard Monday night.
The unidentified deckhand, wearing only a gray sweatshirt and raingear, either jumped or fell into the water from the fishing vessel Swift after midnight Monday in Excursion Inlet.
The skipper of the boat chased after the crewman in a dinghy, but he could not find him.
The Coast Guard on Tuesday morning searched with H-60 helicopter from Sitka and a 45-foot boat from Station Juneau.
Petty Officer James Fangman of the Coast Guard Command Center in Juneau says the skipper, who was in an immersion suit, was medavacked to Bartlett Regional Hospital for treatment of mild hypothermia.
The vessel Swift is anchored up with no one on board.
Capital City Fire and Rescue firefighters responded to Mendenhall Lake to check out a pair of kayakers who apparently fell into the water on Tuesday afternoon.
They were in the water for at least a half-hour as family companions summoned Alaska Travel Adventures crews working on shore. They picked up the unidentified man and woman, took them to shore, and started rewarming them.
CCFR Assistant Chief Ed Quinto says they arrived to transport the cold, but otherwise uninjured couple to the hospital for evaluation.
A rescue team has recovered the body of a New Mexico man killed in Tuesday’s float plane crash near Petersburg.
Photo courtesy Alaska State Troopers
Alaska State Troopers also have released photographs of the crash site, showing the wrecked Pacific Wings deHavilland Beaver hanging on a steep hillside about one-thousand feet up a mountain on the mainland near LeConte Bay.
Sixty-six year old Thomas L. Rising of Santa Fe was among six passengers on the flight-seeing tour. The pilot and five other survived and were rescued from the site Tuesday evening.
The tourists were on the cruise ship Sea Bird run by Lindblad Expeditions and National Geographic. According to an online news site for Duke University, four Duke alumni and a student were the other passengers in the crash. The flight was part of an optional tour of a Duke Alumni Travel program on the Sea Bird. Twenty-two other Duke alumni were on the cruise.
Lindblad Expeditions and National Geographic released a statement yesterday (Wednesday) saying the companies are deeply saddened by the tragedy.
An investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board is in Petersburg this week compiling a report on the crash.
Original Story: June 6, 2013 – 6:39 a.m.
A 66-year-old cruise ship passenger from New Mexico was killed in Tuesday afternoon’s float plane crash on a mountainside near Petersburg.
The Alaska State Troopers have identified the man killed in the crash as Thomas L. Rising of Santa Fe. Rescuers Tuesday night were unable to recover his body due to darkness and weather conditions. Five other cruise ship passengers and the pilot from Petersburg survived the crash and were rescued from the site Tuesday evening.
“The plane was a sightseeing tour and the people onboard, the six passengers, were all from the cruise ship Sea Bird,” said Megan Peters, a spokesperson for the troopers. “The wreckage had been found at about the 1000-foot level of Thunder Mountain and when it was located there was six people found alive and unfortunately one person that was found deceased. All the survivors were all transported back to Petersburg so they could be looked over and treated for whatever injuries that they acquired in the wreckage.”
The crashed plane is a deHavilland Beaver, a fixed-wing, single-engine aircraft owned by Pacific Wings of Petersburg with capacity for one pilot and six passengers. It was reported overdue around 4 o’clock Tuesday afternoon prompting a search by three commercial helicopters and a Coast Guard helicopter from Air Station Sitka. The Coast Guard reported locating the crash site around 6:50 p.m. Tuesday.
“The plane which had seven passengers onboard, we were able to locate them when the Coast Guard MH60 Jayhawk helicopter crew spotted one of the survivors,” said Coast Guard spokesperson Grant DeVuyst. “We were able to hoist all six of the surviving passengers. Unfortunately one of the passengers was deceased. Of course our thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends of the deceased passenger. Thankfully we were able to get the other six back to Petersburg, back to medical attention.”
The Coast Guard reported finding the crash site around 6:50 Tuesday evening and the survivors were returned to Petersburg by 8:20 p.m. DeVuyst credited a working emergency locator transmitter in helping rescuers find the downed aircraft. The plane crashed near Thunder Mountain, in the vicinity of Jap Creek, just north of LeConte Bay and LeConte Glacier, a scenic fjord over 11 miles east of Petersburg.
Troopers say the injuries to the other passengers were serious but not life threatening. The Coast Guard Tuesday reported one passenger had a broken leg and one had a broken back. Two patients were medevaced to Seattle for additional treatment.
The National Transportation Safety Board sent an investigator, Bryce Banning, to Petersburg Wednesday and expected Banning would be able to get to the crash site Wednesday afternoon.
“I understand its in very steep terrain, 30-40 degrees it’s very unstable, so that’s one of the reasons why the Juneau Mountain Rescue group was brought in to be able to stabilize it,” said Clint Johnson is regional director for the Alaska office of the NTSB. “Also assist in the body recovery and help out both the troopers and the NTSB investigator in charge on scene.”
Johnson thought on-scene work could be completed by Wednesday evening. “Bryce’s main objective while he’s in Petersburg there at the site is to be able to document the wreckage at the site and then we’ll work on getting the wreckage out of there and hopefully be able to take a closer look once we get it back to Petersburg or wherever the wreckage ultimately ends up,” he said.
The NTSB hopes to have preliminary information compiled on the accident in five days. The Coast Guard and state troopers also hoped to recover Rising’s body from the plane Wednesday.
Pacific Wings is owned by Sunrise Aviation of Wrangell and offers flightseeing and air-taxi services around central Southeast. The Sea Bird is a 62-passenger cruise ship operated by National Geographic Expeditions and offers tours of the Inside Passage.
One person is dead and six were rescued from a floatplane crash Tuesday on the mainland near Petersburg.
The plane was a deHavilland Beaver, a single-engine aircraft owned by Pacific Wings of Petersburg with capacity for a pilot and six passengers. It was reported overdue Tuesday afternoon prompting a search by three commercial helicopters and a Coast Guard helicopter from Air Station Sitka.
Coast Guard spokesperson Grant DeVuyst says the crashed airplane was discovered Tuesday evening.
“The plane which had seven passengers onboard, we were able to locate them when the Coast Guard MH60 Jayhawk helicopter crew spotted one of the survivors. We were able to hoist all six of the surviving passengers. Unfortunately one of the passengers was deceased. Of course our thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends of the deceased passenger. Thankfully we were able to get the other six back to Petersburg, back to medical attention.”
The plane crashed on the mountainside near LeConte Bay, a glacial fjord on the mainland east of Petersburg. Due to the steep terrain and late hour, rescuers did not recover the body of the person killed in the crash Tuesday. The Coast Guard is working with the Alaska State Troopers to come up with a recovery plan. DeVuyst cites the plane’s emergency beacon in aiding the rescue.
“Fortunately this plane did have a working emergency locator transmitter onboard. That’s the only reason that we knew there was trouble and that’s the only reason we were able to really get on scene and find them, the six survivors.”
No word yet on the identity of the person killed in the crash. The survivors were taken to Petersburg Medical Center Tuesday night.
Pacific Wings is owned by Sunrise Aviation of Wrangell and offers flightseeing and air-taxi services around central Southeast.
This story has been updated to include additional details.
The aircrew located 52-year-old Brian Koelling on a beach this morning, after finding his 10-foot skiff adrift. He was transported to the people that reported him missing at a nearby cabin.
Coast Guard Sector Juneau was initially notified by the crew of a 21-foot vessel that the missing man did not return from checking crab pots in the skiff. A Station Juneau 25-foot Response Boat-small and was launched and searched the shore for three hours without finding Koelling.
At first light, an Air Station Sitka H-60 Jayhawk helicopter began a search and found him stranded on a beach. Koelling’s skiff reportedly floated away overnight while he waited for sunrise.
Sector Juneau watchstander Vince Grochowski said Koelling was prepared with a life jacket and let someone know where he was going, “but sometimes things just go wrong.”
