1-10-2019
SEATTLE, Wash. (AP) — The U.S. Coast Guard says they are investigating the capsizing of a Dungeness crab fishing boat in the stormy waters off the Oregon coast near Newport that killed three men.
Chief Warrant Officer Thomas Malloy says the men had requested a Coast Guard escort across the Yaquina Bay Bar before the vessel capsized on Tuesday night.
“We lost total visibility of the vessel, launched off multiple illumination flares, requested a helicopter come . . . and we started searching for survivors,” he says.
The bodies of the three men have been recovered.
The deaths sent a shock wave through a seafaring community already struggling from a month-long delay to the annual crabbing season.
The Seattle Coast Guard office reports that there is no visible pollution from the accident, though there is debris being gathered by Oregon State Park Rangers.